Bletchley Community Heritage
Our current exhibition is Bletchley and the New City
In advance of its 50th anniversary in January 2017, our exhibition aims to capture the coming of Milton Keynes and its impact on the people of Bletchley. Newspaper articles and personal memories chart the hopes and fears of local people before the building started, and photos illustrate the changes affecting the local area.
The Bletchley Community Heritage initiative was set up by Living Archive in 2000 as part of the regeneration project called Spotlight on Bletchley. The aim then, as it is now, was to gather and preserve the history of the town in photographs, memories, documents and artefacts. This would grow into a record of the history and development of the town and its people through many years of change. For locals and incomers alike, change had a profound effect on their lives and our archive provides an opportunity to reflect upon that change and learn from its impacts.
It's based at Bletchley Library in Westfield Road, with a regularly changing display of local photos. Our Community Heritage Officer and volunteers are there on Tuesday and Friday mornings, working on research projects and digitising and cataloguing the archive, as well as meeting members of the public to answer queries and share memories. We also run a blog – talkaboutbletchley – which is a forum for memories and enquiries about Bletchley’s past. https://talkaboutbletchley.wordpress.com/
The project is supported with funding from Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Town Council.
Our archive of photos, videos, memories and artefacts has grown over the years and is now a significant resource for exhibitions, research, publications and other projects about the history of our area. The digital photo archive alone now holds over 10,000 images of people and places dating back to the beginning of the last century. But it must be remembered that heritage isn’t just the dim and dusty past. Everything we do today is part of the heritage to be recorded for future generations. Today’s events, developments, working and living environments and leisure activities will be of interest to people in the years to come in the same way that we look back now at Victorian times. We must make sure that we are continuing to collect and preserve evidence of how we live now.
We work in partnership with the Town Council, supporting their aim to promote Bletchley and Fenny Stratford as a place that has its own unique history, a place that has embraced change and development, a place that will continue to welcome opportunities for growth and improvement. All local people have a part to play; we’re just doing our bit.
If you have photos taken in the local area and would like to be part of the archive, please call in and see us at the library. And if you have memories to share, log on to the blog and leave your comments. We’d love to hear from you.
Contact us on: 07763239235 or email on [email protected] or visit our website http://www.bletchleyheritage.org.uk/
Opening times:
Tuesday 9am- 12.30pm
Friday 9am-12midday
In advance of its 50th anniversary in January 2017, our exhibition aims to capture the coming of Milton Keynes and its impact on the people of Bletchley. Newspaper articles and personal memories chart the hopes and fears of local people before the building started, and photos illustrate the changes affecting the local area.
The Bletchley Community Heritage initiative was set up by Living Archive in 2000 as part of the regeneration project called Spotlight on Bletchley. The aim then, as it is now, was to gather and preserve the history of the town in photographs, memories, documents and artefacts. This would grow into a record of the history and development of the town and its people through many years of change. For locals and incomers alike, change had a profound effect on their lives and our archive provides an opportunity to reflect upon that change and learn from its impacts.
It's based at Bletchley Library in Westfield Road, with a regularly changing display of local photos. Our Community Heritage Officer and volunteers are there on Tuesday and Friday mornings, working on research projects and digitising and cataloguing the archive, as well as meeting members of the public to answer queries and share memories. We also run a blog – talkaboutbletchley – which is a forum for memories and enquiries about Bletchley’s past. https://talkaboutbletchley.wordpress.com/
The project is supported with funding from Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Town Council.
Our archive of photos, videos, memories and artefacts has grown over the years and is now a significant resource for exhibitions, research, publications and other projects about the history of our area. The digital photo archive alone now holds over 10,000 images of people and places dating back to the beginning of the last century. But it must be remembered that heritage isn’t just the dim and dusty past. Everything we do today is part of the heritage to be recorded for future generations. Today’s events, developments, working and living environments and leisure activities will be of interest to people in the years to come in the same way that we look back now at Victorian times. We must make sure that we are continuing to collect and preserve evidence of how we live now.
We work in partnership with the Town Council, supporting their aim to promote Bletchley and Fenny Stratford as a place that has its own unique history, a place that has embraced change and development, a place that will continue to welcome opportunities for growth and improvement. All local people have a part to play; we’re just doing our bit.
If you have photos taken in the local area and would like to be part of the archive, please call in and see us at the library. And if you have memories to share, log on to the blog and leave your comments. We’d love to hear from you.
Contact us on: 07763239235 or email on [email protected] or visit our website http://www.bletchleyheritage.org.uk/
Opening times:
Tuesday 9am- 12.30pm
Friday 9am-12midday
