January
Ten people came to the inaugural meeting and membership has grown to 18 members. We intend to meet every month, but there is no formal structure, as we want it to be fun, dropping in and out as time permits. To give us a focus, we hope to be ready to produce the Definitive History of Dorstone in 2011.
Several members are researching the history of their own houses and are already passing on what they find to others, as well as looking for more general items of interest such as the Moccas Park Estate, the Enclosures and Census information.
Some of us are interested in ancient and medieval Dorstone, looking at Arthur’s Stone, the castles, the medieval village and the church in particular with its apparent links to Richard le Breton (de Brito) - one of the Knights who murdered Thomas a Becket.
February
For our second meeting, we visited the Harold Street Records Office in Hereford and had a very interesting introduction to the facilities from the Senior Archivist.
March
Memory Collecting
Some members are interested in preserving the memories of our older residents and their families, which cover Dorstone’s last 100 years or so.
By a stroke of really good luck, information about grants for Oral History Projects has just been given to Parish Councils. So Dorstone Parish Council have kindly offered the History Society the chance to pursue this ‘memory collecting’. Those members who are particularly interested in preserving the more recent history of the village are getting together a bid for funding. In time, they hope to talk to the older residents and look at photographs and other documents, perhaps having an afternoon to bring people together so that records can be scanned and preserved.
Already some general themes for the book have emerged from our discussions:
local building traditions, changes in agriculture, the Golden Valley Railway, markets and fairs, pubs and local hostelries.
July
We were delighted to welcome lots of visitors to our archive-collecting meeting at the beginning of July – I’m sure they were tempted in by the rumour of delicious cakes!
There were several displays of documents and artefacts. An excellent one had been prepared by Mike and Eileen Smith which outlined the finds at the site by the Post Office. Robert and Stan Morgan have been kind enough to allow us access to keep up with developments.
Several people kindly provided their house deeds for photographing which give us fascinating background information as to who owned what and when. We scanned many treasured photographs which put faces to the names of those who lived and worked here. Memorabilia relating to the old school and WI records also came to light.
I’m still hoping for some new information about the church, so please turn out all those boxes in the attic! It’s all interesting to us.
If you have any Dorstone documents you would be willing to let us copy, please contact Penny Platts 01981 550150 or Sarah Catterall 01981 550325
To find out more or share information contact penny@platts31.freeserve.co.uk