Newcastle-under-Lyme Unitarian Meeting House The 300 Project

We wanted to celebrate the 300 birthday of our building, the Newcastle-under-Lyme Unitarian Meeting House, which was in 2017. We had already had our archives put in great order and we take part in Heritage Open Days so the history aspect didn't really engage us as the focus for the whole of our 300 year celebrations. So we came up with the 300 Project - which was an opportunity for us to revere our past, celebrate our present and dream our future.

We aimed to get involved, as a community and as individuals, in 300 acts that would make a difference - so that in 100 years, those who come after us will feel proud that we've tried.

As part of our 300 birthday we received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an exciting project, ‘Faith, Reason, Arson And Riot: The Old Meeting House and Its 300 Years’. The project focused on uncovering memories, stories and histories about us and our Grade II listed Meeting House, and culminated in a series of events in September 2017 to celebrate the meeting house’s 300th anniversary.

The project documented and shared the unique history of the Unitarian Meeting House and presented a series of creative community activities, including talks from visiting historians and intergenerational community workshops, that people took part in. The project also interviewed people about their memories of the Meeting House. It also raises awareness of the building and hopefully contributed to its future.