Local History Days Friday 1 and Saturday 2 November 2013

At what is now becoming an annual event, Clements Hall Local History Group invites you to explore the heritage around you in the Micklegate Stray, Clementhorpe and South Bank areas of York during autumn half term.

On Friday 1 and Saturday 2 November we are offering a series of free daytime activities and events to encourage people to explore their local history – their buildings, streets, shops, businesses and the people who lived and worked there.

This year we are looking forward next year to how the Great War will be commemorated in York and what the impact was on the local population.  Amongst the contributors who will be showcasing their centennial plans are the National Railway Museum, the York Army Museum and the CHLHG itself.

We are particularly interested in recording any WW1 documents that local inhabitants may have of their families who worked on the home front or served on the battlefields – photographs, postcards, letters, diaries, identification papers, newspaper articles, citations, local event programmes and publicity, ration books and so on.  We would like to scan these documents to build up an historical picture of how life was lived during the war in our area.  If you have any historical objects of the period we would also like to take photographs of these.

But we also want to broaden our focus more generally, and so we will be looking at the history of some of the surviving buildings in the area whose origins can be traced back as far as the 17th century, the history of the City Walls from medieval times onwards, and how the shops on Bishopthorpe Road have changed over the past 120 years.  There will also be displays by a number of local history groups and organisations.

We invite anyone and everyone with an interest in their local history to come along to a packed programme of talks, presentations, displays and walks, and families can also get engaged in activities which include a treasure trail to discover how our area has changed and handling historic objects which were commonplace 100 years ago but may not be so obvious now!

And when you have absorbed all this, why not relax with some tea, coffee, soft drinks and delicious home-made cakes?

The programme is currently as follows: Both days: Talks: – Dick Hunter: the CHLHG exhibition on the effects of WW1 on the local community – Paul Thomas-Peter: Researching your family history – who lived in your house in WW1? – Anne Houson: The shops on Bishopthorpe Road Displays: – Clements Hall Local History Group – Fishergate, Fulford & Heslington Local History Society – The Work of Community Archaeology in York – York Army Museum – Bishophill Local History Group – Friends of York Walls Family Activities: – Treasure Trail (self-guided walk) – Object-handling – WW1 document and object recording – CHLHG research survey Guided Walks: – Dick Hunter: War Memorials

Friday 1 November Talks: – Jon Kenny: Community archaeology with York Archaeological Trust – Alison Sinclair: An exploration of local architecture – John Rayne-Davis: The history of the Bar Convent – Alison Kay/Ruth Leach: the NRM’s WW1 centenary plans – Neil Hulse: A brief history of the City Walls Guided Walks: – Neil Hulse: The City Walls from Micklegate to the Old Baille

Saturday 2 November Talks: – Kathryn Davies: St Clements Church and the Victorian Gothic Revival – Chris Dowell: The ups and downs of the medieval City Walls – Sister Patricia Harriss CJ: The Bar Convent, its past and future – York’s Alternative History: York’s History from Below* Guided Walks: – Kathryn Davies: St Clements Church – Alison Sinclair: Discovering local history

* This is a 90-minute presentation and workshop about the ‘official’, ‘public’ and commercial histories of York and whether they tell the complete story of York’s heritage, and it links to a research project funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council: “How should decisions about heritage should be made?”