Once an industrial hub, Ouseburn has been regenerated into a cultural quarter of Newcastle and is said to be one of the most vibrant creative communities in the North East that still pays homage and protects its cultural and environmental heritage. This includes the Victoria Tunnel, which was used to ship coal then later used as an air raid shelter in World War 2.
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00:00So we're currently in the Ouseburn Trust office. We are a regeneration charity development trust
00:07and we were set up in the 90s to kind of spearhead the regeneration of Ouseburn so it was quite a
00:13derelict run-down old industrial area and if you've been down here you will have seen it's
00:18changed like hugely even over the last five years and we did a lot of work towards that and were
00:24heavily involved in that side of things. Nowadays we look after the Victoria Tunnel which is a
00:32heritage spot and we also look after all of the green spaces in the Ouseburn. So the Victoria
00:37Tunnel it was built in 1842 as a way to transport the coal from there's a mine over at Spittletongues
00:44and they needed to transport it down to the river and instead of taking it through the town and like
00:49spreading all of the coal dust they built this tunnel underground to transport it so it was down
00:54there. It wasn't actually open that long, I won't give too much away because you find out on the
01:00tour, but it wasn't open that long and then it got a new lease of life in the second world war
01:05so it was used as an air raid shelter. So we run 15 public tours a week so it's every day apart
01:11from Tuesday we're running tours which gives you like a history and an overview of what the tunnel
01:17was used for. We also have a lot of school groups come and visit so twice a week we have schools in
01:23and they get a shorter version of the history and they get like a classroom session on what it was
01:30like to live either in Victorian times or during World War II and then they get taken into the
01:34tunnel and they get to learn about that. We also do special events so we do a wine tasting in the
01:40tunnel which is really cool, very atmospheric, and that's a collaboration with Hotel Duvin and we
01:47also do gigs in the tunnel which is we call it Sounds of the Underground which I like as a
01:52Girls Aloud fan. Yeah it's a really like interesting space to see gigs but the
01:59primary thing is the public tours which is a historical insight into what it was used for and its story.
02:10Ouseburn especially was such an industrial area it was mainly factories and I think a lot of the
02:17stories of people who worked in those situations are lost over time because it was more working
02:22class so I think a huge goal of ours is to keep that heritage alive and keep those stories going
02:29and also in the way that Ouseburn looks it's really important to us to keep those historical
02:35buildings going so you'll see kind of like I don't know things that remind you that it was
02:41once a mill or it was once a factory those elements are still kept in the buildings
02:45and we also work quite a lot with developers to try and make sure they hang on to that heritage.
02:54Yeah I think Ouseburn has a real charm and that's because of the heritage being kept alive here.