A FREE local history book titled Captured Memories centres on the Habitats and Hillforts project which spans the Sandstone Ridge of Cheshire.
Compiled by volunteers David Joyce and Barbara Foxwell, the 120-page volume collects information of activities that have taken place in the immediate vicinity of the hillforts in relatively recent times.
David and Barbara started collating the book in 2009, visiting local groups and societies, talking to people along the ridge and collecting their memories or anecdotal information.
The book is available for free on request from the Habitats and Hillforts project and will shortly be available in libraries, visitor centres, pubs and public venues across the project area. More information can be found at www.habitatsandhillforts.co.uk.
The six Iron Age hillfort sites along the Sandstone Ridge have acted as a focal point for many activities for hundreds of years. Their dominant positions have drawn people for generations to work or play, but little of this has been recorded.
David said: “We have been fascinated by the way seemingly ordinary activities in the county have had a profound effect. Take, for example, the small school at Delamere which became the model for school dinners throughout the country or the farm at Kelsborrow which led the way in the production of clean, uninfected milk free from TB.”
Future visitors may wonder why they can pick up spent mortar shells on a National Trust property on Bickerton Hill but this area was used for military training until 1995.
Nowadays it is also probably unthinkable to hold motorbike hill-climbs on the listed site at Beeston Castle, as happened in the 1950s.
Barbara said: “It is the knowledge of small events that can add colour and interest to a country walk. We hope this publication will stimulate others to increase this pool of knowledge about our county.”
