Our story
How it all began
Northern Heartlands was founded in 2017 as one of England’s 16 pioneering Great Place Schemes—an ambitious initiative funded jointly by Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The goal? To explore new ways of investing in arts, culture, and heritage at a local level.
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Our “great place” was the south-west corner of County Durham, covering:
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Teesdale and Weardale – rural, isolated villages and hill farms
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Bishop Auckland & Shildon
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The former coalfield communities of Tow Law, Crook, and Willington
2017–2020
The Great Place Years
Over three years, we delivered a diverse range of projects from small, one-off workshops to a major community opera co-created with local people and Opera North “Song of Our Heartland”.
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We delivered a small grants scheme funding 47 community-led projects, supported by County Durham Community Foundation, now known as Point North
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Innovative approaches, including:
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An 18-month artist/researcher residency with hill-farmers to amplify rural voices
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Ethnographic engagement with settlements in Dene Valley Parish—once marked for demolition under the Category D scheme
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A large-scale outdoor arts event (The Man Engine) in Willington, where, as one young person put it, “nothing ever happens”
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“You brought what I think was a broken community back together - I have never felt so proud in my life”
Local resident, The Man Engine event
Becoming a charity
Building trust and relationships with communities and genuinely collaborating takes time - and as the Great Place Scheme drew to a close it became very clear that our work had in many ways only just begun. So we established Northern Heartlands as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) to build on the work and expand our mission.
Looking ahead
We remain committed to working in County Durham — building on strong community relationships and forging new ones. Our aim is simple: to keep culture and creativity at the heart of local life. And with years of experience and knowledge behind us we are now well-placed to extend our work further afield, both regionally and nationally. Be part of our journey.