ARTS and heritage groups in Ryedale have received a £45,000 cash injection to encourage music and drama and increase knowledge of local history.

In the latest round of grants for the arts from Arts Council England in Yorkshire, 48 projects - including three in Ryedale - will receive a total of £358,106.

The grants programme gives more than £4 million annually to arts projects in Yorkshire, and is open to a wide range of groups and individuals. It distributes money from the National Lottery and from the Government.

Musicians In Residence, an innovative scheme run by co-ordinator Sarah Derbyshire from her home near Great Habton, has received a grant of £10,138.

Event organisers use its online directory to search for suitable musicians, book their services with the performers directly, and then put a bid in with Musicians In Residence for a subsidy towards the musician's fee, which will be paid should the event run at a loss.

"It means promoters can book musicians that would normally be prohibitively expensive," said Ms Derbyshire.

Ryedale Sports and Arts Festival received £4,774 towards a two-day festival of music drama dance, street art and video this summer.

A grant of £5,000 was awarded to Ryedale Festival for the production of a new musical called The Gypsy Queen, which will be preformed by a cast of 64 young local people in the Ryedale Festival Community Opera in Pickering in July.

Meanwhile, the Local Heritage Initiative has awarded £25,000 to The Lockton and Levisham Heritage Group to conduct a six-month archaeological project around St Mary's Church to identify whether there once was a village in the valley.

The group was formed in May last year to make local history more readily available to villagers and visitors.

"We're very excited about this funding and we are also very keen to encourage as many people as possible to join in the work," said group secretary Anne Deebank.

The Local Heritage Initiative is a partnership between the Heritage Lottery Fund, Nationwide Building Society and Countryside Agency.

Updated: 11:01 Thursday, June 10, 2004