Saturday October 25th was the occasion of the first History Workshop run by the Society. The subject matter was House History and was attended by some 30 potential house detectives.
Two speakers were invited, Jim o’Neil from Hoylake on the Wirral and more locally Christine Bradley the reference and local studies librarian at Colne library. In the first session Jim looked at some of the physical features of old and not so old houses which could give clues as the buildings history. In the second session we looked at some of the documentary sources including deeds, maps and census returns. The third session took the census entry for one particular house in 1871 and we tried to build up a picture of the people and their life in that house at the time.
The house in question was called Sandheys and was inhabited by a cotton broker and his family and domestic staff. The session finished on a novel note when Jim gave us 30 minutes to write a poem, draw a picture or compose a playlet based on the material we had been studying and a wealth of hidden literary talent was discovered.
The event was perfectly rounded off by Christine Bradley of Colne library assisted be Martyn Bennett (who dealt with the technical aspects of the presentation). Christine explained how the library services can help with research by detailing the relevant types of documents and records which are held in the local libraries.
As Jim explained it is difficult to cover adequately such a diverse subject as House History in the time we had but hopefully it provided some pointers as to where to start and gave encouragement to those who wanted to discover the history of their house.
If any one has any ideas for another workshop event in the future please let one of the committee members know.
House History Workshop
