Dial H for History

Tideswell Living History Group will launch the Tideswell History Telephone on Friday 11th April. This is the first time an unused iconic red telephone kiosk still in its original location has been turned into a permanent oral history audio heritage centre. 

Residents and visitors will be able to dial-the-past to listen to Tideswell folk talking about village history using a specially adapted and free pay phone. The kiosk will also feature a gallery of archive photographs about the village. The rear of the kiosk will feature a specially written poem about using the phone to communicate in the days before mobiles and Twitter. The poem, called ‘An Ode T’ T’owd Phone Box’, was written by Dave Greenan and was the winner of a poetry competition in 2013.

The oral history recordings and photographs have been collected by members of the living history group over the last two years as part of the Tideswell Tales project. This is a community-led history project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and co-produed with inHeritage. We came up with the idea, liaised with Blackbox AV who supplied the unit, edited the audio and advised the group during the process of creating the 'heritage centre in a box'. The Peak District National Park Authority has paid for the cost of refurbishing and cleaning the box through the Sustainable Development Fund.

Judy Cooke, Vice Chair of Tideswell Living History Group said "Funding has helped us to preserve the distinctive telephone kiosk in its original position in Fountain Square after the Parish Council bought it from BT for £1. In the days before mobile phones and before most people had landlines, this was one of the lifelines for residents to communicate in emergencies or get in touch with friends and family. The box is in a central location and has been part of Tideswell life for generations, with many stories to tell. It has been transformed to tell many more. We hope it will help residents rediscover their past and visitors to learn about the people's history of Tideswell."

All calls are free and you can’t dial 999 for emergency services! Oral history and photographic displays will be changed regularly from the large archive collected by the group. You can also explore more of the archive by visiting http://tideswelltales.wordpress.com.

The launch takes place on Friday April 11th at 12pm. Local historian Tony Hill will unveil the box. There will be free tea, coffee and biscuits along with a display of more photos in the Vestry of Fountain Square Church.

About Tideswell Living History Group 

We are a group of people living in Tideswell and Litton, Derbyshire who wish to preserve our recent past through memories, photographs, anecdotes, news stories and other sources.

About the Heritage Lottery Fund

Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) aims to make a lasting difference for heritage, people and communities across the UK and help build a resilient heritage economy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage. HLF has supported almost 36,500 projects with more than £6bn across the UK.  www.hlf.org.uk.

Monsal Trail Walk

The Walks Around Britain video features the Peak District's Monsal Trail and the inHeritage audio player of railway memories.

Calver Weir Finale

Calver Weir Exhibition

The Calver Weir oral history project came to a glorious end this weekend with an exhibition in Calver Village Hall.

Over 200 people visited the exhibition over the weekend. The launch was attended by 10 interviewees, 2 Heritage Lottery Fund officers, all of the oral history team and about another 15 residents and visitors.

Interviewees watch the movie

The event was the culmination to 18 months hard work by the team, who had recorded 22 interviews and searched Derbyshire Record Office's collection of Calver Mill documents. Highlights include finding the sources of the 19th century mill's cotton and the range of tools required each year to keep it operating, childhood memories of playing on the weir and river, working life at Sissons stainless steel factory and the filming of Colditz by the BBC. The main success was seeing a group of people come together, learn historical skills and work as a team.

The oral history team

inHeritage has been involved with the project throughout, mentoring and guiding the volunteers and producing a travelling exhibition, booklet, movie, comic and podcasts. We have also created an archive which is deposited in Calver, Derbyshire Record Office, the Peak District National Park Authority and the East Midlands Oral History Archive.

Booklet, comic and celebratory ale 

The Movie

The exhibition

The comic

The food

Calver Weir Oral History

The Calver Weir oral history project is coming towards the end of the interview phase this month. Volunteers have completed over 14 interviews. Five of these are now online, which cover the early history of the mill, Sissons and the restoration of the weir. Future podcasts will include the river and Colditz.

http://www.calverweir.org.uk/page1/page1.php

Calver Weir Podcast

The first podcast from the Calver Weir oral history project is now online. It features Ray Fowler talking about his experiences, projects and successes as Sales Director at Sissons, who made stainless steel products at Calver Mill during the second half of the 20th Century. Some were shipped to the Falklands. The interview was recorded by the oral history volunteers and edited by inHeritage.

http://www.calverweir.org.uk/page1/page1.php

Calver Weir Audio Trail

The Calver Weir Audio Trail is now available online to download and copy to your mp3 player ready to explore the heritage and wildlife of the area around the weir and Calver Mill.

The trail takes you on a journey along the River Derwent from Curbar Bridge to Froggatt Bridge and back. On the way you can discover the features in the landscape which tell the history of the mill and its weir. You also encounter the rich wildlife which makes its home along the banks of the river.

To download the trail, visit http://www.calverweir.org.uk and click on the New Audio Trail link on the right hand side of the home page. 

Tideswell Tales Website

The Tideswell Tales website is launched today.

Bill led a training workshop on using the free website service wordpress.com to promote and communicate the Tideswell Tales project to members of the Tideswell Living History Group. He taught participants how to add and edit pages, blog posts, media files and photographs - including how to create image galleries. We also went through how to upload audio files to AudioBoo and SoundCloud, then how to embed the audio files into Wordpress pages. The members of the groups created news pages with embedded radio broadcasts and new themed sections with pages containing oral history recordings.

Using social media audio services saves expensive media hosting fees and embeds excellent, easy-to-use media players into project and society websites. Wordpress allows societies to create free function-rich websites containing news, events, information, photographs, documents, PDFs, and embedded audio and video, which are easy to maintain with a little training.

You can listen to the project launch radio interviews and the first oral history excerpts at Tideswell Tales. Click on News or use the drop-down menus under Audio.

Hope-Castleton Lichfield Archives Training

Fifteen members of Hope and Castleton Historical Societies, along with other volunteers from the Hope Valley and Sheffield, begin discovering Hope and Castleton's Medieval past in Lichfield Archives.

Andrew George, Principal Archivist, gave an clear and enjoyable introduction to the types of records available. Both villages were part of the Medieval Diocese of Lichfield, therefore a wealth of ecclesiastical records are stored in the Archives. There are wills, inventories, Bishop's Registers, charters and a range of other documents which give an insight into Medieval life in Castleton and Hope.

The group left the excellent training day enthused and buzzing - both with what they discovered on the day and the potential to come.

The Hope-Castleton Medieval Common People project is one of a number of ongoing projects managed by inHeritage. Please see our projects page for those we have completed.

Memories of Calver Weir and Mill

inHeritage have just been contracted to help the Calver Weir Restoration Project record and preserve the memories of people associated with Calver Mill and the weir.

We will manage an oral history project on their behalf which will train a group of volunteers to record interviews with people who are linked with the mill, weir and the adjacent part of the River Derwent. The project begins with a memories day in March and runs to April 2013.

The press release for the project is below:

Search begins for memories of Calver Weir and Mill

The Calver Weir Restoration Project is launching an exciting oral history project about Calver Weir, Calver Mill and Calver Marshes. Led by volunteers from the local community, the project aims to discover and record the memories of people who worked, lived and played at the mill and adjacent River Derwent.

Calver Mill ended its working life as a cotton mill in 1923 but continued with other uses including as a World War 2 fluorspar depot and then as a stainless steel factory until the 1990s. Calver Weir was essential in managing water flow to the mill, as well as supporting a rich wildlife habitat at Calver Marshes. The weir has recently been restored with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, who are also funding the oral history project.

Potential interviewees include people whose parents or grandparents worked at the mill or maintained the weir; workers at the later converted mill buildings; anglers, bird watchers and local residents.

George Wolfe of the Calver Weir Restoration Project says “We are looking for people whose parents or grandparents worked at the mill or maintained the weir, workers at the later converted mill buildings, as well as anglers, bird watchers and local residents. We would like to record their memories to create a historical archive of the recent working past of the mill and the use of the River Derwent in Calver for recreation. We are also training a small number of volunteers from Calver in oral history recording.”

If you would like to find out more, the project is launched in Calver Methodist Church with a Memories day on Tuesday the 27^th March. All are welcome who have memories of Calver Mill, Weir and Marshes. The day runs from 2pm to 5pm and includes refreshments. Volunteers will be on hand to write down any memories you may have and take your details if you would like to be interviewed at a later date.

If you would like to find out more or enquire about being involved please get in touch with Bill Bevan, 0114 2345411, bill@inheritage.co.uk or George Wolfe, 01433 631308, geowolfe1@gmail.com.

ENDS

Notes to editors

About the Calver Weir Restoration Project

We are a registered charity formed in 2004 with the objective of saving the weir from collapse and restoring it to good condition. Calver Weir is a Listed Grade 2 structure, built in the 19th century to provide water to power cotton spinning at Calver Mill, on the River Derwent, in the Peak District National Park, Derbyshire.

Now that the restoration of the weir has been achieved, CWRP is working hard to add to the enjoyment of visitors to the area, by improving footpaths and access points, and carrying out important conservation work and providing information on the history and wildlife.

Hope Castleton Medieval People

Hope and Castleton Historical Societies have been awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant to learn about the ordinary medieval people of the two villages in Derbyshire.

inHeritage will be working with the societies to facilitate the project. We will help manage the project, provide skills in landscape archaeology, historical and interpretive writing, booklet production and graphic design.

The press release is below:

Hope and Castleton Historical Societies win Heritage Lottery Fund support

Today, Hope and Castleton Historical Societies have received £26,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an exciting project, Digging Hope and Castleton’s Medieval History, in Castleton and Hope. Led by volunteers from the local community, the project aims to discover where the common people lived during the medieval period. The two societies are working together between now and March 2013 – and they need your help.

The project will try to find out about the ‘hidden history’ of Castleton and Hope villages between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Civil War in 1642. While history can often tell us about kings, lords and landowners, it is more difficult to track down the ordinary people who lived and worked in the Peak District’s villages. This is because they don’t appear in as many historical documents, most of which are about property, and their history can remain hidden.

Di Curtis of Hope Historical Society says “We are grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund who have awarded the Society a grant to look into the medieval history of Hope and Castleton. This means we can undertake documentary research, dig archaeological test pits and survey the old routes between the two villages.”

Angela Darlington of Castleton Historical Society says “The test pits will be dug in people’s gardens in both villages during the first two weeks in July. We are looking for finds such as old pots that can show where people lived during the medieval period. Each test pit will be a metre square. We hope to dig each one in a day.”

Finds from the test pits will be shown at an open day then some will be put on display in Castleton Museum. Pupils and students from Castleton and Hope primary schools and Hope Valley College will also join in a range of activities to learn about their medieval ancestors.

If you live in Castleton and Hope and would like to find out more about the project there is a talk at Castleton Village Hall on Monday 30^th January at 7:30pm. The Societies are looking for volunteers to help with the test pits, surveying the old routeways and doing research in the record offices. If you would like to get involved in the archaeology or documentary research, or are happy to have a test pit dug on your garden please get in touch with Di Curtis, 01433 620724, dicathope@aol.com or Angela Darlington, 01433 620281, amstafford@hotmail.co.uk.

The project is managed by the two societies with the help of Bill Bevan, and the archaeological assistance of the University of Sheffield.

Explaining the importance of the HLF support, HLF Grants Officer in the East Midlands, Greg Pickup, said: "We were delighted to support this exciting volunteer-led project. It will provide opportunities for the whole community to gain new skills whilst exploring a hidden part of the Hope Valley's fascinating heritage. The project will uncover stories that have been buried for centuries, allowing people to discover how the lives of common people shaped the history of Hope and Castleton in Medieval times."

ENDS