Have you seen it yet?

The Sopwell Memories exhibition held in the Museum of St Albans in Hatfield Road is up and running and will remain there until the end of August.

The Sopwell Residents Association's team of volunteers has curated it with the help of the museum staff and we think that we have done a really professional job considering we are just a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs.

It is amazing how good we can make it look with the help of a roll of Velcro dots, laminating sheets and foam board.

We have been really fortunate also in being able to borrow the display panels from the Smallford Residents Association. They are also managing an HLF All Our Stories project - the history of Smallford station - so we have been sharing our experiences of running lottery funded projects over the past year or so. Our thanks go to Jeff Lewis and team for helping us out.

We have had lots of favourable comments on the exhibition so far. We would like more so if you haven’t been to see it yet, do go along and let us know what you think. And of course you can still visit the website www.sopwellmemories.org.uk and leave comments and maybe your memories.

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Sandy Norman

Sopwell Memories exhibition at the Museum of St Albans

We are pleased to announce that, to accompany the launch of the Sopwell Memories website, www.sopwellmemories.org.uk, there will be a free exhibition, which we have curated, of the story behind the website at the Museum of St Albans in Hatfield Road, from 1-31 August 2014.

Do come along to see it!

Many residents and past residents have contributed their memories in the form of oral history recordings and photographs and to date over 40 people have been interviewed resulting in 137 posts. The website is interactive, so you may add your own comments and memories.

Project Manager, Sandy Norman, says: “It has been really enlightening talking to past and present residents about their memories. These would be lost to future generations if we had not decided to preserve and celebrate them. Their stories and photographs will be an invaluable resource for education institutions and social historians as well as the general public.”

Please look at the website and if possible, drop in to see the exhibition.

It’s downhill all the way

The new www.sopwellmemories.org.uk website is being read and you all seem to like what we have done. Some people have posted comments already which is good. Keep them coming and feel free to let me have any new images of yours to add to what we have already.

I have posted several interesting stories this month.

If you have not yet had a look at the post about the North Western hotel from Grant Peerless, it is worth a look and listen.

Grant lived in the hotel which was on the corner of Prospect Road and Holywell Hill, in the 1940s and 1950s. Originally a late Victorian railway hotel, it no longer exists of course. It had a spell of being the Abbey Tavern before finally closing to make way for offices.

Also interesting were the stories told to me by Brian Welch who lived on Holywell Hill at one time in one of the houses belonging to the Colne Valley Water Company – remember them? Brian was one of the so called ‘vandals’ who was instrumental in preserving the site of the Holy Well.

And more stories about Holywell Hill come from Jennifer Taylor whose father owned the Adaire ladies fashion shop at the Peahen hotel. Jennifer went to school on Holywell Hill too.

The More Memories of Sopwell project ends in August but we are going out with a splash. We will be having an exhibition of all our work in the museum in Hatfield Road for the whole of the month of August. We know you will enjoy it.

I still have lots of information to put on the website so keep checking now and then.

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Sandy Norman

Alive but not quite kicking

The Sopwell Memories website is alive!

We had our “soft” launch at the Sopwell Residents Association AGM last Wednesday, where I gave a brief demo of its capabilities. 

The main launch - hopefully with press coverage - will be in August, as part of the month long display in St Albans Museum in Hatfield Road. 

I am really pleased with the work that we have put into it and I am sure, once people find out about it, they will be too. So the thing to do is to tell all your friends and family who may have an interest in the history and memories of Sopwell and St Albans. 

I have posted on the Sopwell Project page on Facebook and we had a couple of comments fairly quickly. It has been favourably received, so that is good. 

At present, the website is not yet being picked up by Google search so, to access it, please type the following URL in your browser: www.sopwellmemories.org.uk (or simply click on the link).

We are sure that the website will be of interest to:

• anyone interested in history of the area
• anyone interested in genealogy
• primary and secondary school teachers setting projects
• students researching local topics
• anyone looking for old unpublished images of the area

and I am sure there will be many more reasons to use it.

Try it out and see what you think and by all means, let us know. This is the soft launch so if there are any glitches we can iron them out by August.

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Sandy Norman