Wednesday 21^st February  2018

We got together again at Sue’s house to have another good look at the memorabilia and ephemera documents that were so kindly donated by a local resident in the village. This very interesting collection - late 19^th and early 20^th century in date - relates mostly to his grandfather’s grocery business, the Methodist Chapel’s Sunday School, and the Embsay Brotherhood.

The Embsay Brotherhood, 1933

The Brotherhood Movement, founded in 1875, is something we knew nothing of before we saw this collection – a Non-Conformist society, it was intended to bring together men, especially young men, to promote Christian values and mutual support (They merged with the Sisterhood Movement in 1967).  The Embsay-with-Eastby branch was established in 1928 and lasted until well into the 1930s.

It was an intensive day of cataloguing, photographing and scanning the materials so that we have a permanent digital record of everything in the collection.

We surprised ourselves that we actually managed to get it all done by the end of the day, and even fitted in an hour or so to discuss progress on our preparations for the Armistice Event in November.

We confirmed who is doing what, and the central themes to focus upon. Now all we have to do is go away and research it all, and put it all together…

There’s also the annual Churchyard Tour, which David and I are to give – we shall have to start thinking about that too. Perhaps we shall give that a First World War perspective as well.

Jane Lunnon.

16^th February 2018.

The blog has been quiet, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been working hard. In fact, we’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to update the posts.

Last week we were looking carefully through a boxful of documents – leaflets, postcards, receipts, souvenir programmes – kindly donated to the Embsay Research group by a local resident. We have categorised them, and next week will spend a day making digital copies, and setting up a detailed catalogue of the collection.

one of the items from the collection -
a sketch of a local old pole-gate post - now sadly lost

Yesterday we had a visit from a representative of the Washburn Heritage Centre at Fewston, which is between Skipton and Harrogate in the Washburn Valley. She was intrigued by our Churchyard Survey project, so we gave her a little tour of St Mary’s Church and then retreated out of the bitter cold to Sue’s house to get warm again. We explained our methodology and objectives, and she went away at lunch-time with plenty to think about and take back to her next committee meeting. It’s always satisfying to know that we have been able to enthuse someone else with churchyard studies. We spent the afternoon putting in more data on the grave reference sheets.

I have spent many intensive hours in the public library searching through the archives of the local newspapers for the period of the 1914-18 war, for any references I can find on Embsay and Eastby. It’s a tedious and slow process, and with the Armistice commemoration now approaching in November, Sue, Eileen and Jennifer have volunteered to help me out by going through the 1917 archives. Their first go on the microfilm reader was a bit of a surprise – the tiny print prompted them to ask for a magnifying glass so they could read the display – I wish I’d had a camera with me!

We are planning to setup an exhibition in our village hall over the Armistice weekend, and to present some readings, so we’re very busy researching a range of topics associated with the impact of the First World on British society and particularly on our parish. Lots to do!

Jane Lunnon