The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded White Lantern Film a grant to capture the history of Bournemouth Pier and turn living memories into an educational history DVD.

The project will be the most significant local history project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund in Bournemouth to date.  Launching later this month, the project will aim to seek out untold stories about the pier and use drama to bring memories from the past to life.

The project also has a series of courses, active learning experiences for young people and events planned on Bournemouth Pier to encourage people from the local community to get involved with the heritage.  Over the next few months a team of researchers will be capturing people's memories of Bournemouth Pier on video and posting them on the project web site for the local community to see, and vote for the most interesting.  Towards the end of the year, the top stories will be turned into an educational DVD which will then be distributed for free to local schools, libraries and colleges.

White Lantern Film Managing Director, Adam J Merrifield, says, “This an exciting project and we are extremely honoured to have been selected to capture the history of Bournemouth’s most iconic landmark.”

The project web site will be launched in September as the hunt for the town pier’s heritage begins.