Volunteering
Volunteer with us
As a registered charity, we really appreciate the support given by our volunteers to help us deliver the range of events, tours, and educational activities that we’ll be offering throughout the year.
Across our sites, volunteers are a fundamental part of our team. People who generously offer to volunteer will work with staff to help preserve our buildings and structures, and bring their history to life for our visitors. Volunteering is an excellent opportunity to keep active, meet new people, build new skills, and to help look after our local community’s heritage. You can see more about the different volunteer roles below.
St. Mary’s roles
Heritage
If you’re passionate about local history and heritage – this is the role for you! Our heritage volunteers help visitors learn more about St. Mary’s Heritage Centre’s long and storied past and its place in the community from the eleventh century right through to the present.
Events
Running events that are open and accessible to the local community is at the heart of what we do here at St. Mary’s! We need volunteers to help us make our guests feel welcome and take care of our space. (note- events volunteers need to be over 18 for events with alcohol)
Gardening
The grounds of St. Mary’s are a haven for Gateshead wildlife and an important spot of biodiversity as well as being a formerly consecrated burial ground. Gardening and grounds volunteers play an important role in maintaining a balance between a lively space for nature and a respectfully maintained historic graveyard.
For more information on each role, email [email protected] or call 07576 314051
Marian and Vin, volunteer gardeners at St. Mary’sWe joined the history group at St Mary’s in about 2018. They had a May garden fest which we attended with about 8 other people. There was so much to do that we continued to attend on our own for about 2 hours a week weather dependant from spring until late autumn except during lockdown.
We enjoy doing our own thing, Vin doing the cutting near the grave stones to minimise damage to the old stones & me doing weeding in the bigger graves. Many people walk into the grounds and church so we talked to them giving a little about the history.
