Blue Plaque Project - Who Lived in Your Street in 1916?

May 2016-May 2017

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Hebden Bridge Arts Festival won Heritage Lottery Funding to deliver the 'Who Lived in Your Street?' project in 2016. Hebden Bridge residents were invited to find out about who lived in their properties at the height of the Great War in 1916.

Using the 1911 census, the names and occupations of households were discovered and over 300 vinyl blue plaques were printed to be displayed in windows throughout the town, many of which are still in situ.   

In addition, the project produced:

• an audio story walk and trail
• three exhibitions (including a ‘Make the Town from clay’ workshop and exhibition)
• audio memories for the map chair
• two 1916 themed community events
• three school projects and workshops
• 1916 workshops for the Brownies

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We engaged over 500 people in the researching and finding out about ‘who lived in their street 100 years ago’ and trained and worked with over 100 volunteers.
 
Of the people involved in the project we reached a wide and diverse audience from young families to the residents of local care homes and sheltered accommodation, primary schools to university graduates, locals and visitors.

It makes us very proud that the success of this project has led to five local councils and a number of other organisations nationally contacting us for information about how they might engage their local communities with finding out more about where they live and who used to live there.

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​The After Alice Project was invited to make a photographic record of some of the events. Visit their website to see the online exhibition. 

They were also involved in the 1916 portrait event, which took place at Hebden Bridge Town Hall, with period clothing provided by Bankfield Museum. The After Alice Project took portraits on a 1910 Houghton and Butcher Ensign camera that they had restored especially for the occasion. The subjects were required to keep very still for 2 seconds due to the long exposure time required for this old camera.

"This was the second time that the After Alice Project has been commissioned to work for HBAF and we were especially pleased that this brief involved working with such a broad cross section of the local community as it fits so well with our organisation's aims. Hebden Bridge and it's surrounds benefits enormously from this type of project and we're pleased to have recorded it in our photographic archives for future generations"’ 

​'H' Gregg  for The After Alice Project. theafteraliceproject.org

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The Hebden Heritage Story Walks were written and performed by Ursula Holden Gill.