Addison was created by children from Ryton Federation junior school as part of a project about their local area.

The game is about the village of Addison: a village near Ryton, in Tyne and Wear in the Northeast of England. Addison was declared economically unsustainable and demolished when its colliery closed. It is now woodland.

The children began their research into the everyday heritage of the area by learning about Category D villages. Addison (within Ryton) was earmarked for demolition alongside 121 other ex-mining villages in the 1950’s and 1960s. This was a policy that was applied to ex-mining villages across the council, which at the time was Co. Durham. There was strong opposition from local people to remain and keep their community, family and sense of belonging. The neighbouring village of High Spen was saved from demolition but Addison was not. Children were shocked by the policy and began to think about what is loved about where we live and what would be lost.

High Spen Primary School and Ryton Federation Juniors were awarded an Historic England Everyday Heritage grant for their project, ‘Looking Out for Each Other’ to recruit an artist each, to research and create artworks about lost working class women heroes of their villages. At Ryton Federation, artist Guy Schofield worked with all the children at the school to create a game that would enable them explore stories from the lost village. All the models, textures and sound in the game were created by the children.  Children from year 5 designed the story and the structure of the game.

This project is funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage grant programme, celebrating working class histories. It was produced by Debbie Beeks and supported by staff from Ryton Federation.

More information