Marks Gate Tea Party

On Tuesday 27th May, we had a wonderful time hosting our ‘Marks Gate’ inspired tea party at the Marks Gate Community Centre. The tea party was an opportunity for us to meet more local people and hear their stories and experiences of the place that Marks Gate is today.

We had organised a series of activities including our ‘Art is…..’ display, asking people to add their thoughts to what art was to them, it was interesting and insightful reading the responses to this extremely  important question! One guest wrote ‘Art is the Best’, well were definitely inclined to agree with this! Families got involved with our teapot crafty card making exercise with artist Jodie. We also captured people’s memories of the estate using our ‘Marks Gate Memories’ board, asking people to fill a memory tag with their memory and pin it to the Marks Gate Map. Last but not least, we brought along our ‘Marks Gate Bunting’, which is steadily growing, and people had the opportunity to design and make their own flag with us as contribution. All of this whilst having tea and cake!

It was a lovely afternoon with some lovely conversations whilst creative juices were flowing. We were absolutely chuffed when local resident Pat Cambridge came in and donated 4 trios of tea cups, saucers and side plates to the project. The trios originally belonged to her grandmother and are absolutely beautiful. Pat filled out a memory tag with us and we found out that she has lived on the estate for 58 years, that’s even before it was officially the Marks Gate estate in 1960! The afternoon ended with one resident telling us that the project ‘is a breath of fresh air to the area’, that made our day and we look forward to continuing our creative ventures on Marks Gate and meeting more people on our journey. Here’s some photos from the day:

(c) Photo credits: Connie Taylor Photography