Your Heritage
After the repairs to this village church, the parish priest worked with volunteers to help people learn more about the history of their church and village. Some students from the local primary school wrote and produced a church guidebook, with suggested activities and information aimed at children. This was so successful that a programme of school activity days, over a period of four months, followed.
Young children used the memorial in the church to a 17th century mayor, Charles William, as a starting point for learning about historic dress and fabric. Others made clay medallions, re-enacted stories from the family life of Charles and made copies of some Victorian tiles in the church using new materials. Children also used church registers to look for their own family names.
Photographs were added to the guidebook to help people understand the church more easily. Two listening posts were also installed, which continue to be extremely popular with visitors. Well-attended days for adults included a ‘Finds surgery’ with archaeologists, a gravestone investigation day (as part of the annual National Archaeology Days event) and sessions on exploring and understanding church records.