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.”