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 Some of these had already been archived but a lot awaited archiving.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.
‘Gravestones Project’
The ongoing ‘Gravestones Project’ focusing on the (former) Baptist Chapel and St Mary’s Church, collates information we have on the burials and the history of families from the village and the local area. LPHG is not a Family History group although, through our work on local heritage and history, we do have a considerable amount of information relating to people and families in both burial grounds.
An independent group in 1989 recorded the inscriptions on those graves that were legible and these have now been transcribed so they are now digitally available. From this starting point we have now put a photograph of the grave and the inscription on an independent website ‘Find A Grave’ https://findagrave.com This provides and safeguards information for family descendants from anywhere, near or far, who wish to look for their family history. It should be noted that not all the information on ‘Find A Grave’ has been inputted by LPHG and some individuals have added their photographs and headstone inscription. Our input will show ‘created by’ ... ‘Long Preston’ or ‘Graeme’.
‘Find A Grave’ also includes recorded burials where there are no gravestones. The information for this comes from the burial records we have obtained.
To date we have completed the input of graves for the Baptist Chapel. Any additional information that we have associated with a gravestone will also be put on ‘Find A Grave’ in due course. We are now preparing to carry out a similar exercise for St. Mary’s churchyard. Anyone who wants to help in any of this work, please contact the LPHG Secretary at secretary@longprestonheritage.org.uk
Similarly, if anyone has information about people, homes or graves that they would like to give to LPHG to safeguard for the future, please don’t hesitate to contact the LPHG Secretary.
In an attempt for completeness, LPHG is also using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) at St Mary’s which provides an enhanced image of the inscription on graves when the script is no longer legible to the human eye. This is a technical process using specialist photography and software to read stones where the script has become illegible over the years. Some graves have already been read in this way and it is hoped we can use it to open a window and see the remaining inscriptions that have been lost to erosion and overgrowth of lichen.
Additionally, over the years, we have collected information on some families and homes in the village. We have not put it on the website due to any potential Data Protection Act (DPA) regulations but you are welcome to ask LPHG, through the Secretary, about any of this information.