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‘We’re absolutely thrilled!’ York history group wins national award

Susan Major and Anne Houson from Clements Hall Local History Group York, with their award
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The Community Archives and Heritage Group (CAHG) have announced the winners of its annual Awards for Excellence.

And one group in York is delighted with the recognition.

CAHG is part of the Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland), and its awards are highly competitive, receiving nominations from across Britain and Ireland.

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The Britannia, Wheatsheaf and Trafalgar Bay on Nunnery Lane. Photo: Hugh Murray

Winner of the ‘Community Engagement’ category 2021 is Clements Hall History Group (York).

The judges noted the wide range of activities that the group employ to reach as wide an audience as possible. In this way, the work of the archive is made relevant for a real range of people who engage and it was also noted how well the group continued to maintain their community links through lockdown.

The group was formed in 2013 and is based at Clements Hall in York, a community building and registered charity south of the city centre. Their aim is to explore how events and forces have shaped their local community, the Clementhorpe, South Bank and Bishophill areas of York.

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Chair Anne Houson said “We’re absolutely thrilled to receive another national award for our work. We share our stories using a mixture of traditional activity, exploring archives and using oral history, with new techniques, such as smartphone apps and Zoom talks.

“Following our publicity and engagement efforts, by the end of last year we doubled our membership from around 50 to over 100 in 2021.”

Susan Major, group volunteer, said “During last year and this year we’ve used a variety of ways to keep engaged with our local audiences in the face of the pandemic, and to encourage new people to join in with our local history work.

“We moved our talks to Zoom, but at the same time we enlisted the help of our local press to run features about our researches, for those not online.

“We adopted a pub, the Trafalgar Bay on Nunnery Lane, to be our ‘local history hub’ for our shops and pubs research, making good use of their beer garden.

“Our series of books about the history of local shops has proved tremendously popular, attracting new people to our group work.

“We’re very active online with our website and social media and we also created a series of smartphone audio guided history walks for individuals and families to follow, as well as continuing to work with schools.”