East Lancs exhibition will show rich history

The rich history of a part of East Lancashire will go on display next month.

A permanent exhibition of Clayton-le-Moors heritage will open in its community centre on November 21.

It is the culmination of 18 months of work funded by a £10,000 National Lottery grant – and there could be a book, website and animation to come.

The exhibition will be mounted by the Clayton-le-Moors Heritage Project and two days after it opens Hyndburn Leisure’s community centre will host a “A Night of Celebration”.

This will include an opening performance of The Ballad of Clayton Le Moors, displays of historical photos, artefacts, and personal stories; a discussion on the findings and their significance; food, refreshments; and plenty of conversation.

During the pandemic, many places in Clayton Le Moors were forced to shut their doors, cutting off access to much of the history displayed there.

Community activator Ian Hodgson said: “When Mercer House closed, then the Arthur Wilson Centre, then the local library some fabulous artefacts were farmed out to several places outside of Clayton-le-Moors, along with other items relevant to the area.

“This was a blow.

“The Clayton-le-Moors Heritage Project was therefore started to reinvigorate and unearth interest in the wealth of material here.

“We all been on an incredible journey together and are definitely a happy group of people.

“There’s been hundreds of conversations, lots of laughter and a shared fascination with the deeper human story that heritage hunting seems to highlight.”

Since June last year, the project has been working to gather an impressive range of historical material.

The group meet twice a month at Clayton Community Centre and have sifted through the wealth of material unearthed to alight upon themes such as “Important Local People”, “War, Religion and Leisure”, “Buildings and Architecture” and “The Leeds and Liverpool Canal”.

The exhibition was shaped and designed in collaboration with Stephen Caton at Source Creative.

The project group are hoping to continue post-exhibition and intend to apply for new funding so they can produce a definitive book about Clayton-le-Moor’s history, as well as a dementia friendly colouring book and materials to be used in local schools.

There are also plans for an animation and an accompanying website which can accommodate all the material and any new finds which the exhibition didn’t manage to accommodate.

Team member David added: “It’s been incredibly inspiring for me and I’m happy to have played my part by collating all the photographs into a slide show which we used to pick out the final exhibition photographs.”