Earby and District Local History Society

Although we were established in 1995, the Earby and District Local History Society is a new member of the Community Archives and Heritage Group. Our Society is based in East Lancashire and we have taken the Ancient Parish of Thornton – in – Craven as our “patch” and as such our area straddles the pre 1974 county boundaries between Yorkshire and Lancashire. This change in boundaries means that archives relating to our area are scattered amongst a number of different county record offices.

Over the intervening years since 1995 we have been gradually collecting all manner of archives and artefacts relating to our area. It is only within the last twelve months or so that we have been able to find a suitable venue to set up a community archive.

They say “every cloud has a silver lining”. Our local Community Centre was in danger of closing due to local authority funding cuts but a compromise was come to in which the full and part time staff would be withdrawn and the centre would have to be run on a voluteer basis. The withdrawal of staff resulted in a large office becoming available and the Society approached the Community Association Committee with a view to using this office for the archive. We had unanimous support and we began to prepare the room though purchases and donations of furniture to take all our material which had been stored in various locations.

After 12 months of dedicated work by a small team of the Society members we are now in a position to open up the archive to the public.

As we, like other similar societies, are totally volunteer run we have started by opening on Friday mornings or by appointment to see how things go.

If you want to find out more about our Society you can visit our web site www.earbyhistory.co.uk.