Blue Plaques Project - Who Lived in my Street in 1916?

May 2016-May 2017

Our hugely popular Heritage Lottery Funded project ran from May 2016-May 2017 and generated 300 vinyl blue plaques in Hebden Bridge and surrounding areas, many of which are still in situ.

In addition, the project produced:

• an audio story walk and trail
• three exhibitions (including a ‘Make the Town from clay’ workshop and exhibition)
• audio memories for the map chair
• two 1916 themed community events
• three school projects and workshops
• 1916 workshops for the Brownies
• an archive of photographs taken on film on genuine vintage cameras by the local community and the After Alice project

We engaged over 500 people in the researching and finding out about ‘who lived in their street 100 years ago’ and trained and worked with over 100 volunteers.
 
We ran drop in surgeries and events and established a facebook group. We reached a wide and diverse audience from young families to the residents of local care homes and sheltered accommodation, primary schools to university graduates, locals and visitors. We have been contacted by five local councils and a number of other organisations nationally for information about how they might engage their local communities with finding out more about where they live and who used to live there.

The depth of intergenerational engagement in this project has overwhelmed us and we are actively encouraging people to continue researching. Using a shared sense of local history and heritage to engage our local community has proved to be one of the most cohesive elements of our festival activity in recent years.

"This was the second time that the After Alice Project has been commissioned to work for HBAF and we were especially pleased that this brief involved working with such a broad cross section of the local community as it fits so well with our organisation's aims. Hebden Bridge and it's surrounds benefits enormously from this type of project and we're pleased to have recorded it in our photographic archives for future generations"’ 

​'H' Gregg  for The After Alice Project. theafteraliceproject.org