Peckham THI

As part of the wider Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI) project in Peckham, Our Hut was commissioned to design and deliver the complementary schools’ education element. It involved workshops carried out in two primary schools in 2017: St James the Great and John Donne Primary School and the publication of free teaching resources on the Southwark website.

A further legacy project was carried out in 2022 for which Our Hut devised a programme of creative heritage workshops, including plans and activities. This scheme was then delivered over half a term by teachers supported by Our Hut in four local primary schools: John Donne Primary School Year 3, St John’s & St Clement’s C of E Primary School Year 5, The Belham Primary School Year 4 and Bellenden Primary School Years 4 & 5. In each school two classes took part and each class was allotted two ‘special study buildings’ – Peckham buildings of particular interest that became the focus for in-depth work. Our Hut led the first session and we visited Peckham Rye Lane and Peckham High Street, becoming detectives to spot details in the wonderful range of interesting buildings stretching back to the eighteenth century. We learnt about Peckham’s fascinating heritage and each class also visited their own two ‘special buildings’.

The rest of the workshops took place with the teachers in the classroom and centred on helping the children to investigate and connect with their local area. Activities included making Peckham timelines, analysing ‘then and now’ photos, investigating famous Peckham people and producing ‘time-travel’ postcards. The children made creative work in response to the architecture, history, daily life and people of the heart of Peckham and models of the special buildings. There were two models for each building; one showing it either as when first built or as seen in a later archive photo, and the other as it appears today. The work was then shown in a public Grand Finale exhibition at Mount View in Peckham, alongside the outcomes of the rest of the project.