Ferryhill Town Council are pleased to announce that, following a series of community consultations, a Miner’s Lamp Sculpture has been installed on land known locally as Surtees Corner, at Ferryhill Station. The project was funded by a grant of £20,000 secured through the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and a grant of £15,000 secured through the Neighbourhood Budget allocations of former County Councillors Peter Atkinson and Curtis Bihari, via the 4Together Partnership.
The Miner’s Lamp Sculpture, which was designed by Professional Sculptor, Andrew McKeown, has been installed to commemorate the mining heritage of the Town and incorporates the names of mining occupations and terms specific to the Durham Coalfield area engraved around the column of the lamp. The Sculpture also incorporates a feature that will enable it to be lit up on special occasions.
Ferryhill Town Council would like to say a big thank you to Andrew Mckeown for all his hard work on this project, to residents who took the time to put forward occupation names and suggestions for the final sculpture design and for sharing their stories, and to Ferryhill Station Primary School for taking part in Sculpture Workshops, designing and producing some fantastic replica mining tokens.
A Celebration event is being planned to mark the installation of the Sculpture, early in the New Year.
Mayor, Councillor Angus Ferguson said: ‘I would like to thank everyone involved in bringing this project to fruition. It is great to see Ferryhill’s Mining Heritage Celebrated through art.’
‘As well as securing external grant funding to deliver this project, Ferryhill Town Council has also been successful in securing grant funding to develop a new toilet facility at Duncombe Cemetery, which recently opened to visitors, and to regenerate the children’s Play Area at Dean Bank Park, with works scheduled to commence early in the New Year.’
For more information about this or any other project being developed by Ferryhill Town Council please contact Karen Younghusband at Ferryhill Town Hall on telephone: 01740 652157 or email: kyounghusband[@]ferryhill[.]gov[.]uk
Ferryhill & Chilton's local community newspaper.
Well done Peter Atkinson .
I’m a bit worried that a corner seems to have been named after me – I only spent a few weeks in Ferryhill Station, almost 50 years ago 🙂