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 3rdNovember.
- Knit the village
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
