Carsphairn Heritage Archive
Carsphairn Heritage Initiative (CHI) is a Scottish Incorporated Charity (SC049987) based in South West Scotland, which looks after an archive relating to the historical life of the local area.
Carsphairn sits at the top of the Glenkens, between the Rhinns of Kells and Cairnsmore of Carsphairn in Dumfries and Galloway. The area has been home to upland sheep farming and hydroelectricity; shepherd poets and innovators who changed the world; religious persecution and heroic deeds; plane crashes and lead mining.
Since the 1980s, Carsphairn Heritage Group and now CHI, have been collecting together an archive that includes:
- detailed family history research
- photographs, slides, newspaper clippings and social history documents
- details of past livelihoods, living and working conditions
- rural skills and heritage crafts
- records of historic events
- history of places long demolished or changed in use
CHI aims to preserve, interpret and make the collection accessible to as many people as possible via both the online archive and physical exhibitions in Carsphairn Heritage Centre. Past activities have also included slide shows, guided walks, promoting walking trails, publishing leaflets and books, hands-on digitisation and heritage craft events.
While the Heritage Centre is currently closed, the archive is available online and there is a group Facebook page. Volunteers are looking at innovative ways of taking the Centre forwards and working on projects that include re-developing walking trails, transcribing documents and recording gravestones.
If you’d like more information or would like to get involved please get in touch.