Progress with Current Projects

 

LPHG have 2 ongoing projects.

Details of both projects are given below but both projects are open to everyone, whether to participate or just to see what is happening.  If you want to know more please contact secretary@longprestonheritage.org.uk .

The new archiving project which commenced in 2017. 

Over the years, LPHG has been given and has collected a variety of objects and documents. These range from books, photographs and deeds to archaeological artefacts.  Some of these had already been archived but a lot awaited archiving. The results of earlier archiving, to 2017, can be found in the ‘Archive’ section on this website.

Recently LPHG also acquired the archive of material from Robert Slater, now sadly deceased. Robert had collected and safeguarded a lot of Long Preston’s history and his family wished his archive to be kept in Long Preston.

Coincidentally, The Friends of the Dales (formerly the Yorkshire Dales Society) had a project to archive the historical records of Ingleborough Dales area. They agreed that Long Preston could join in with this project, called ‘Capturing the Past’.  This archive project is being funded through Stories in Stone, was developed by the Ingleborough Dales Landscape Partnership and is supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is now known as the Yorkshire Dales Community Archives -  www.dalescommunityarchives.org.uk .

Under the leadership of Sheila Goodall, a team is going through Robert Slater’s and LPHG’s more recently acquired items and is archiving them within the Capturing the Past project.

The St Mary’s Church Project which commenced in 2017. 

See Heritage Group Events page for details of meeting to be held on Wednesday 20th March 2019.

St Mary’s Church was mentioned in the Domesday Book but its origins go back into Anglo-Saxon times. It has a substantial graveyard and, with the ravages of time, a lot of the gravestones have become difficult or even impossible to read.

Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) is a computational photographic method that captures a subject’s surface shape and colour and enables the interactive re-lighting of the subject from any direction. RTI also permits the mathematical enhancement of the subject’s surface shape and colour attributes. The enhancement functions of RTI reveal surface information that often cannot even be seen.  By taking a number of photographs under controlled conditions, with advanced software analysis, lost details can be brought to the human eye.

LPHG would like to use RTI to record the gravestones, starting with the ones most at risk.  LPHG have and are receiving advice and guidance from the Embsay Research Group, part of the Upper Wharfedale Heritage Group.  They are working in partnership with the St Mary's Embsay Churchyard Survey Project team actively undertaking a RTI project with their Church. LPHG is pleased to put on record our thanks to them.

In the short-term, LPHG has identified 5 gravestones which are at risk of deterioration and will shortly be surveying them, using RTI and more conventional techniques under the supervision of the Embsay Research Group.  We would like to stage a small exhibition in the middle of 2019 to show the outcome of this work and to put forward our proposals for further surveys of the churchyard.

In the longer term, it is hoped to develop a database of the findings from the RTI work together with the Parish register and other records.

In 2020, the project has expanded to take on the work that had been done by Mel Ingram on family history and stories.  Mel has since left for Germany to share a home with his daughter.  With the aid of some very able and willing volunteers, we are now preparing a spreadsheet of people form the past giving basic information and, where we know more, a fuller narrative.

Together with the RTI work and quality photographing of all St Mary’s gravestones, we hope to present on the Capturing the Past website all the information we have and a lot of information on people from Long Preston’s past.

We have a new lead on the project – Ian Evans who can be contacted c/o the secretary or on 840505.  We are not yet able to respond to queries on family history but will happily take information from anyone.

We are also looking for anyone with computer expertise to help us load information onto the capturing the Past website.