We are making a record of the position of the timbers, their size and quality. Valmai is drawing the position of the studs on the bedroom walls. Timbers are often cut to insert doors or larger windows.

January

Now we are starting to record the timber framed buildings in the village. We want to find out how the building developed over time. The best place to see the changes in structure are up in the loft. Georgina, our surveyor loves crawling around in lofts. We have found out that this house was a hall house and the chimney was inserted sometime in the seventeenth century.

Telling Our Story: The story of Pirton’s Houses celebrates £5500 Heritage Lottery Fund grant

Pirton Local History Group is one of the first groups in the UK to receive a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) All Our Stories grant, it was announced today. This exciting project, the Story of Pirton’s Houses led by Pirton Local History Group has been given £5500 to record the architecture of the village’s small listed buildings and produce an interactive map.

All Our Stories, a brand new small grant programme, launched earlier this year in support of BBC Two’s The Great British Story – has been designed as an opportunity for everyone to get involved in their heritage. With HLF funding and support, community groups will carry out activities that help people explore, share and celebrate their local heritage.

The popular series presented by historian Michael Wood and supported by a programme of BBC Learning activities and events got thousands of us asking questions about our history and inspired us to look at our history in a different way through the eyes of ordinary people.

The programme and HLF All Our Stories has proved a real hit and now The Story of Pirton‘s Houses is one of hundreds of successful projects around the UK to receive a grant. The Pirton project will enable members of the community to become “house detectives” and learn more about how houses and their occupants have changed over the centuries. As part of the new project we will be developing a web-based digital map so that students, researchers and all those interested in history can ‘click’ on a picture of a building and see all the information that has already been collected — including the description of the house, recordings of architectural details, photographs, plans showing its evolution, details of past inhabitants and owners, wills and inventories, land sales, previous uses, acreages and field names of attached land, archaeological information, and oral history. When it is complete, this map will be available on the Pirton Local History Group website [www.pirtonhistory.org.uk].[

TV presenter and historian Michael Wood, said: “We British love our history, and no wonder: few nations in the world, if any, have such riches on their doorstep, and so much of it accessible to all of us. It is really tremendous that the people Pirton have been inspired to get involved to tell their own story and to dig deeper into their own past. It’s brilliant that so many people are being given the chance to get involved through the All Our Stories grants. Having travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles this last year filming The Great British Story, I am certain that fascinating and moving stories will be uncovered which will not only bring to life the excitement of local history, but will illuminate and enrich every community’s connection with the national narrative.”

Commenting on the award, Georgina Brakenbury a member of the history group,  said “we are really pleased that we have been awarded this grant .We enjoy where we live and know there’s so much more to discover about our past. We hope that the community will join in with the project and then the information about our heritage will be shared with everyone through our website.

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said: “Clearly the success of All Our Stories has reinforced the fact that we are indeed a nation of story tellers and that we want to explore and dig deeper into our past and discover more about what really matters to us. This is exactly what the grant will do for the Story of Pirton’s Houses as they embark on a real journey of discovery.”

The Group are about to begin a new heritage project. We are hoping to document the development of the small listed houses in the village. We plan to try to sequence the different stages of building and to date them by comparing certain architectural features and styles. We will make a record of the house with drawings, photos of architectural features and an interpretation. We already have a collection of old photos of houses and documentary evidence showing previous owners and tenants. Now we are linking this with architectural and archaeological information to give a more rounded picture of the story of the house and its inhabitants.

We have already carried out a pilot study of a house in the village and some of the information was on display at the Knitted Village Exhibition at the Methodist Church on Friday 2nd November and Saturday 3^rdNovember.

We intend to use the information to produce a web-based digital map so that users can ‘click’ on a building and see all the information that has already been collected — including the description of a house, recording of architectural details, photographs, plans showing its evolution, details of past inhabitants and owners, wills and inventories, land sales, previous uses, acreages and field names of attached land, archaeological information, and oral history. This map will be available on the Pirton Local History Group website www.pirtonhistory.org.uk.

In order to pay for someone to design the interactive map we have applied for a Heritage Lottery Fund grant which is linked to the “All our Stories Fund”. This particular fund has been set up to enable communities to research their heritage and is connected to the television programme called The Great British Story presented by Michael Wood.

We hope to hear if we have been successful in November.

Helen Hofton and Georgina Brakenbury, Pirton Local History Group