Little Downham Local History Community Archive Group

The group holds open meetings throughout the year, and can be contacted through any Book Cafe session.

Walk map.JPG

“Well, I never knew that”

On the evening of Tuesday July 12th, following last year’s successful event, the Archive group hosted it’s second conducted walk around some more parts of the village. The walk was lead by Roger Martin, who, as ever, pleased and astonished the 30 walkers with the depth of his knowledge of the detail and minutiae of local history. Passing St. Leonard’s, the group learnt of the donation of the clock tower by Lord Downham, before turning along Church Way, past two cottages converted from a barn. Along Lawn Lane, their attention was drawn to the hollow left by the abstraction of gravel for the railway. Because of the sub-soil, this dip is said never to flood, water seeping away to appear further along the Lane. On California are the remains of kilns, where locally dug clay was made into the bricks used for local building. The return took the walkers along the broad grass verge, left as a drove road to keep the main road clean. The group returned for an animated discussion.

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Who we are. In 2005, East Cambs council set up a pilot scheme for an online archive, compiled, not by a central. committee, but by an initial group of seven independent sites, supported and funded by the council. Among these groups were Little Downham, Pymoor and Coveney. The project was structured so that anyone with access to a computer could contribute. The pilot was so successful that there are now nearly 50 sites. Here in Downham, the committee extended the scheme to include a small physical archive and to promote and assist an interest in local and family history.

What we do.We still maintain, update and persuade others to contribute to the online archive:

www.ccan.co.uk

History happens all the time and our most recent posts date from 2011.

What can I do? We need people to help with our projects and to devise and pursue their own. We need you to raid your cupboards and shoeboxes for pictures, bills, pamphlets, anything which fill out and humanise the dry facts of history. We need you to view CCAN to fill the gaps and correct the errors. Luckily, we are very cheap to run, so funding is a minor problem, but, even if you are unable to help in other ways, any small donation to help defray our running costs is nevertheless welcome.

Contact us at
downham-archive@hotmail.co.uk
and on 698884 or 69948
Visit us as part of the Cambridgeshire online archive at
www.ccan.co.uk

'The Archive Group is linked to almost 50 similar sites across Cambridgeshire through the Cambridgeshire Community Archive Network, www.ccan.co.uk which enables anyone with Internet access to contribute to, as well as view, any site with which they have a connection. .

For more details e-mail downham-archive@hotmail.co.uk