Got a wonderful black and white photograph of your great grandmother standing in a car-free street in downtown Twerton or a shot – you found in a car boot sale – of people boarding a steam train at Bath Spa Station?
While you may treasure such images in an album you keep at home, now comes the chance to share it with the world in a wonderful new facility that gives you the opportunity of stamping your own community identity onto an on-line facility that records the changing face of places like Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
Go on line via http://www.kypwest.org.uk/ and you will pick up the following information about an Heritage Lottery Funded project you can really get involved in.
‘Know Your Place is a digital heritage mapping project to help you to explore your neighbourhood online through historic maps, collections and linked information.
Know Your Place – West of England covers Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and the former Avon area. It will provide unprecedented online access to historical maps, onto which users can add information about their local area, building a rich and diverse community map of local heritage for everyone.
The project runs until June 2017 and will provide comprehensive cover of the modern counties of South Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, North Somerset, Bath & North East Somerset and Somerset.
The project has been awarded £379,800 by the Heritage Lottery Fund, with generous match-funding and in-kind support from local authorities and heritage groups in the region, including £5,000 match-funding from the lead partner, South Gloucestershire Council.’
Here in Bath, local writer and historian Andrew Hill has been busy uploading images on to the site from the vast archives of the Museum of Bath at Work.
It’s where l met him to find out more about his efforts – and how the people of Bath and North East Somerset can get involved.
A chance also to chat to Stuart Burroughs who is the Director of the Museum of Bath at Work.
Forgive the shaky camerawork but – with space at a premium in the museum archive – the camera is being hand-held!
The website address that will bring you straight to the B&NES section is http://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/?edition=banes
Andrew Hill is also the author of a book that takes an in-depth look at Bath’s retail history by exploring the rise and fall of one of its most famous commercial enterprises Cater, Stoffell and Fortt.
The Museum of Bath at Work’s website is www.bath-at-work.org.uk/
