Lottery funding will boost research into a site that was home to 300 child Holocaust survivors.

Cumbrian-based charity Another Space, which runs the Lake District Holocaust Project, has received £48,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards a £62,000 scheme to carry out an archaeological survey and dig at the former Calgarth Estate.

It will be conducted at the Lakes School, which now occupies the site, with the aim of discovering what remains of the estate lie below ground.

The estate was originally built in 1942 to house workers at the nearby “Flying Boat” factory at White Cross Bay. Each of its six hostels housed 50 people in small individual rooms.

One of the survey leaders is Caroline Sturdy Colls, professor of conflict archaeology and genocide investigation at Staffordshire University. She completed the first archaeological surveys of the former Treblinka death camp and the sites linked to the Nazi slave labour programme in Alderney.

Trevor Avery, director of Lake District Holocaust Project, said: “The story of Calgarth is fascinating. No other location in Britain has such a strong physical connection to the Holocaust.”