Stone is an exciting new collaboration between South Square Centre and Thornton Antiquarian Society, who are working together to create an accessible archive of local history material, develop education resources for schools and run heritage events and activities for local people. It has been made possible with funding from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The archive room will be open on Sunday 05 May as part of South Square Centre's Open Studios event so please come along and find out what's been going on with the project. This is your chance to meet some of the volunteers and find out about the work they are doing to make the archive more accessible to everyone. If you have any material that could be useful for the forthcoming exhibition (see below) why not bring it along and tell us about it. There will be volunteers on hand between 11.00am and 4.00pm so do drop in and say hello.

Artist and photographer, Simon Warner is working alongside the project's freelance education officer, Charlotte Derry to develop teaching materials for local schools. Charlotte is delivering heritage discovery sessions with the children and Simon will be using his skills to run workshops to create images for a new heritage trail that can be used by local schools to discover more about the history of the Thornton area.

Work with Keelham Primary School has already begun and the children have been introduced to some of the many materials lodged in the archive using old maps, photographs and artefacts to find out more about the Keelham area. Local people have also played their part by contributing their memories of times past helping to bring history alive for the children. The education work will continue until the end of the summer term with sessions also taking place at Thornton Primary School. The heritage trail will be supported by a range of other materials about local history that teachers can use to support their lessons.

For images of the education sessions at Keehlam Primary School click here.

Material from the Thornton Archive will be on display at South Square in July and August.

This new exhibition uses research, photographs and other material from the Thornton Antiquarian Society Archive to tell the story of the quarries, mines and potteries in Thornton. But we need your help.

Did you work at one of the quarries or mines before they shut down? If so, would you tell us your story? Were there quarry workers, miners or potters in your family? Have you got photographs you are willing to share?

Did you know or are you related to Eli Wood? Does anyone have a photograph of this well known local character?

Did you ever throw a pot at Soil Hill Pottery? Apparently local children were invited to do just that. Perhaps you still have your pot - if so could we borrow it for display. Or do you have photographs of pots on sale outside Keelham Post Office? If you can help in any way please get in touch before the end of May.

Volunteers continue to develop the archive in a number of ways. Cataloguing is well underway and by the end of the project, the aim is to have a catalogue of all the material held both as a paper reference copy and electronically. This should make it much easier to find information about the history of Thornton for anyone involved in education or research work.

Some of the material in the archive is fragile which is why a number of volunteers are learning how to make and store digital images of photographs and other delicate items. Our volunteers have been working with volunteers from an extensive digital archive, Pennine Horizons in Hebden Bridge, sharing their expertise and skills. Keeping digital copies has another advantage. You may have photographs of interest to other people but which you want to keep. If that's the case we can now scan your image and return the original to you. Get in touch and find out more.

Work is also about to start on collecting stories from local people. A number of people will shortly be interviewed about their work in local quarries and coal mines. But we also want to capture other stories of interest about Thornton. So if you have a story to tell, do get in touch.

For images of the volunteer training workshops click here.

Click here for images of the show.

The Stone heritage project is for everyone in Thornton and the surrounding area so please do get involved. You can do this in a number of ways. We will be collecting stories for the archive next year and want to hear from anyone with an interesting story to tell. Watch out for details of drop-in days when you can find out more about the archive and the material it holds. Come along to the next exhibition and discover more about the place where you live. Or do something different - become a project volunteer. Learn new skills, meet new people and help to develop the Thornton Archive.

The project is being managed by Lorraine Greenald and this webpage will be updated as the project progresses so watch out for news about how you can get involved and any events that are planned. You can also contact us on the project email address heritage@southsquarecentre.co.uk

Photograph courtesy of Thornton Antiquarian Society.