The building of the Holy Family church and snapshots of school life are part of a photographic exhibition celebrating 50 years of Oxford's Blackbird Leys estate.

Opening at the Leys Linx Centre, in Blackbird Leys Road, tomorrow, the Leys 50th Anniversary Exhibition will feature photographs both from the Oxford Mail archive and from residents' own collections.

Jim Barlow, of the Leys Learning Community, which has organised the event, said: "We wanted to capture the lives of the people on the estate in images, to show the value of all the people who have lived here over the years.

"It's the first time we've done something like this and we're hoping people will bring more of their photographs that we can scan in, so we can build up an even broader picture of local life."

The centre is also hosting mosaic and poetry workshops today. Residents are invited to help make 50 individual panels for a mosaic to be put up outside the community centre to mark the estate's 50th anniversary.

It will be unveiled at the grand finale of the anniversary celebrations on Saturday, December 15.

The Leys In Verse contest - which closes on Friday, November 30 - encourages local people to contribute limericks, haiku or free-style poems, with £100 in vouchers going to the winner of each category.

Entrants in the limerick competition need to write a rhyming five line poem which has the same amount of syllables as a traditional limerick. The haiku - based on a form of Japanese poetry - is more challenging, with three lines which must be five, seven and then five syllables long.

Poets entering the free-verse category can write any length up to 100 words and their efforts do not need to rhyme.

Workshops run from 10am to 4pm today. The exhibition is open from 10am to 4pm today and noon to 4pm tomorrow.

There will be a second chance to catch the exhibition in December when it will run for 10 days from Saturday, December 8.