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An historic Sunderland convent has secured a Lottery grant to preserve their heritage and help to tell their story for future generations.

The Sisters of Mercy, based at Oaklea Convent on Tunstall Road, have successfully applied to the National Lottery Heritage Fund to help deliver their project called Mercy in the City.

The £74,000 grant will go towards a two-year project which will help to safeguard their legacy.

The project aims to share the inspirational story of the Sisters of Mercy in the North East with a wider audience.

From left, Sr Adrienne Reverend Mother, Michelle Daurat convent general manager and Sr Francis. In the garden at Oaklea Convent. Picture by Frank Reid.

The institute was founded in 1831 by Sr Catherine McAuley. The sisters have been in Sunderland since October 16, 1843, based in Green Street until the early 1900s.

As well as being great source of charitable works, Oaklea Convent is closely associated with next-door St Anthony’s Academy. Many of its nuns have taught there since the school was established in 1902.

The Mercy in the City project involves a number of initiatives, such as recording interviews with the sisters to find out about their childhoods, education, experience of living in a community, their ministry and their profession.

These interviews will be added to the sisters’ existing archives, which will be catalogued and digitised with the aid of a professional archivist.

Sr Adrienne, Reverend Mother at Oaklea Convent.

An archive and exhibition space is to be created, which will be accessible to academics, students and members of the public who want to know about the institute’s history.

A website will be developed to hold archive information, photographs, prayers and news. Plans are to be put in place for the safekeeping of the archives after the sisters have died.

The convent’s general manager, Michelle Daurat, said: “We’re really happy and grateful to the National Lottery players whose generosity means we can record, archive, celebrate and safeguard the sisters' stories and legacy of their good works in Sunderland and the wider North East.

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General manager of the convent. Michelle Daurat.

“It’s exciting that the sisters will get the chance to tell their story in their own words and this will be recorded, archived and contribute to the history of their times.”

In 2020, the sisters raised spirits during lockdown by performing uplifting hymns outside their home, earning themselves national and international coverage from the BBC and CNN in the US.

Sunderland's Sisters of Mercy convent lands £74,000 Lottery grant to protect its heritage