Digitally Disrupting the Archives
In 2024 Northumberland Archives were awarded a grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop an exciting creative digital project working with youth groups in Wooler and the Tyne Valley.
‘Digitally Disrupting the Archives’, which officially launched in June 2024, aimed to introduce young people to archives, enabling them to discover how the past affects the future, to explore the history of their home county, and inspire them to develop creative digital outputs influenced by their experience of the archive in two separate projects: an escape room project, and a film making project.
Create an Escape Room
Young people aged 12-18 from the Hexhamshire area were invited to take part in our Escape Room Project – transform a repurposed van into a touring escape room.
We ran the project fortnightly at Queen’s Hall Hexham and Hexham Community Centre from October 2024 until February 2025, working with a group of 23 young people.
The young people visited two escape rooms – Project Escape in Hexham, and The Escape Key in Newcastle; along with visiting Northumberland Archives to prototype puzzles inspired by our documents.
The young people also worked with professional escape room designer Martin Ashburn, set designer Amy Watts, and theatre company November Club to develop the narrative, setting, and puzzles for the escape room.
The Wooler Way of Life
During summer 2024 we worked with a group of young people from Wooler Drop In and 1st Wooler BP Scouts to develop a film inspired by the history, heritage, archival collections, and their experiences of the area.
The young people worked with professional film makers Jon Chappell and Reuben Hibbert to learn all about how to plan, format, shoot, and edit a documentary film.
Their film, The Wooler Way of Life, was screened at the 20th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival in March 2025.
The groups worked closely with Northumberland Archives staff throughout the project, including visiting archive service points at Woodhorn and Berwick to see the collections in situ. The young people and archive staff also collaborated with creative practitioners such as a professional filmmaker, theatre director, games designer and set designer.
At the end of the project a series of events showcased the end results – from a film premiere to a touring escape room. This will be shared with the wider community throughout Northumberland, with the aim of boosting interest in the archives and generating engagement from young people.
Northumberland Archives sees this as a transformative project for the service – revolutionising the way we use archives with young people and the wider community.
Find out more about The Archives Job: Touring Escape Room.
