Brighton WW2 Air Raid Shelter Charity Awarded Heritage Fund Grant
Friday 21st February 2025
Take Shelter has been awarded a grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to create and share a never before told story of wartime Brighton life through displays, resources and events.
Today, Take Shelter is announcing an £85,575 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to capture and share the experiences of the city’s last wartime veterans. Working with volunteers, we will present these first-hand experiences alongside artefacts, wartime documents, photographs and films drawn from the partner organisations to create a rich story of wartime Brighton, saving it for future generations for whom the Second World War is not within their lifetime.
During the war every school would have had an air raid shelter. Today the only accessible one in the south is located under the playground at Downs Junior School in Brighton. Take Shelter is very aware that the last wartime generation will not be with us for much longer. Without this funding from Heritage Fund we would not be able to take this last opportunity to record and preserve the memories of our veteran volunteers, who were all children during the war, and others of their generation across the city. Their recollections, alongside other original wartime material from Brighton Museums, Mass Observation Archive, Screen Archive South East and The Keep will provide the personal and social context for the air raid shelter and life in wartime Brighton.
This project will see Take Shelter work with volunteers to record the veterans’ memories, research and select original archive material for display, curate new physical museum displays, develop content for new digital touchscreen, and create an interactive bombing map of key locations across the city. The final project resources will be informed by consultation with advisory groups drawn from the local community and school teachers We will also be working with an access advisory group and young people with additional needs to ensure that we are meeting their needs as fully as possible.
Take Shelter is advertising for a Project Officer to lead the project now and will be recruiting volunteers for the different activities from 1st March. Visit our website, www.takeshelter.org.uk for further details.
Michael Button, Chair of Take Shelter said, “We are so excited to have received this support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players for enabling us to work with local volunteers to make sure the stories of our wartime veterans are saved and shared with our visitors.”
Notes to editors
About Take Shelter
Take Shelter is a volunteer led community heritage group which was established in 2015. The group, based at Downs Junior School (BN1 6ED), manages the only school air raid shelter open in the south and one of only two open in the UK. The project works to keep the stories of wartime Brighton alive by delivering a popular schools programme, monthly community open days and four event weekends during the Brighton Fringe, Armed Forces Day and Heritage Open Days. In 2023/2024 the project welcomed more than 2,500 school children and more than 2,000 community visitors. The group achieved charitable status as a CIO in 2023 (No.1202472).
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. That’s why as the largest funder for the UK’s heritage we are dedicated to supporting projects that connect people and communities to heritage, as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.
Over the next 10 years, we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to make a decisive difference for people, places and communities.
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Further information
Download the pdf press release here
For further information, images and interviews please contact Michael Button, Chair of Take Shelter on michaelbutton@downsjun.brighton-hove.sch.uk
