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.
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