St John and St Mary, Stiffkey with All Saints, Cockthorpe
Home	Bale & Stiffkey Benefice	Binham Priory	Glaven Valley Benefice

Stiffkey Local History Group

February 2010

Walking Guide

The Group has been awarded a grant of £230 by the Wells Area Partnership towards the production costs of the walking guide to the village. The guide will be available through local outlets, price £1 or from Geraldine Green Tel 830245.

.

At the AGM

• The following members were re- elected to the Committee: Keith McDougall (Chairman); Steven Bashforth; Pat Price; Laurence Jordan; Geraldine Green. Robert Price had expressed his wish not to be re-elected.

• The Chairman noted that vacancies exist on the committee. He asked any members wishing to join subsequent to the meeting to contact him. Sue Matthews has since offered to join the committee; vacancies still exist if you are interested.

• As several group members already serve on the Village Hall Committee it was felt that no further representation was necessary.

• Helen Leach volunteered to offer her e-mail address as a contact point for information regarding Stiffkey Camp

• It was agreed that charges be made for meetings held at the Village Hall £1 members; £2 non members

• John Wright spoke at AGM, the talk entitled ‘Taking a peep at Tudor Stiffkey.’ John gave a fascinating glimpse of early Stiffkey, using examples of old documents and maps.

• Annual Membership remains at £5. If you wish to pay by standing order, please contact Geraldine for details.

New Publication

• I’m sure our chairman will not mind me mentioning his newly published book ‘A special kind of light: Norfolk and Scottish Landscapes’, which was published late last year. The book presents an annotated collection of Keith’s landscape paintings of Norfolk and Scotland

  
  New website: www.northnorfolkcentral.co.uk

  We have begun to create a website for the group as part of the excellent www.northnorfolkcentral.co.uk . To find the website just key in ‘Stiffkey Local History Group’ as a Google search or go straight to http://www.northnorfolkcentral.co.uk/balestiffkey/stiffkey/stiffkeyenter.htm. Now we need to consider how to develop it!

  .

  Donations – We still await reorganisation of space at the Village hall to enable our filing cabinet to be sited there, but donations of material continue to arrive.

  • Mike Welland has e-mailed a number of old photographs of Stiffkey which he located during his researches for a talk he gave recently in Wells on the local photographer Albert J Mahomet, these include view of the Old Hall & the 1912 floods. (The photos are not necessarily by Mahomet)

• Helen Leach found a quantity of miscellaneous newspaper cuttings, photographs, photocopies and other documents relating to Stiffkey, which were given to her husband James. The committee suspect they were collected as part as the Millennium Scrapbook project. Unfortunately most do not give information regarding date, and many do not give details of which newspaper they came from. If you are interested in helping sort and index them, a start on this will be made at 144 Camping Hill at 10am on Friday 5th February. All members are welcome to join in this discovery session, but please let me know please contact me on 830569 in advance, so that I know how many biscuits are needed!

• You all, I’m sure, completed the Village Questionnaire last year, and will be pleased to know that the large envelopes used in the survey will be recycled to store our cuttings.

Future activities

• A talk will be given by Mike Welland on ‘Researching the History of your house’, at the Village Hall 7pm on 18th March. Mike is a well known local historian who contributes a regular column in The Quay, and has done much research on buildings in Wells. All welcome, £1 members; £2 non members

• Indexing donated material. 144 Camping Hill, 10am on Friday 5th February. Tel Steven Bashforth on 830569

• Visit to Docking Local History Centre. Docking Local History Group formed only a few years ago, but has developed a study centre, complete with microfilm readers at the Village Hall there. We hope to discover many ideas that can help us to develop here in Stiffkey. Please let Steven know if you would like to come along & if you need (or can offer) transport. We haven’t got a date yet, but it will be soon!

• Visit to Stiffkey Old Hall. Date & time to be announced.

Photo survey

Pat Price will be undertaking a photographic survey of the village this year, which will link to her collection of old photographs. She has asked to assure everybody that she will respect people’s privacy as she does this, so don’t be disconcerted if you see her standing in the middle of the road! Let’s hope she can avoid the traffic!

Recording reminiscences.

We are still looking for looking for volunteers to join Laurence in conversations about old Stiffkey.

**************************************************************************

Stiffkey Local History Group was formed in 2008 to study, record & promote interest in the history of the village. Activities to date have included guided walks; talks; social evenings and work on a walking guide to historical sites around the village.

A newsletter is issued to keep members informed.

Group Officers:

Chairman: Keith McDougall, Hill House, 25 Bridge Street, Stiffkey NR23 1QP. Tel 01328 830344

Secretary: Steven Bashforth, 144 Camping Hill, Stiffkey NR23 1QL (steven@stevenbashforth.wanadoo.co.uk)

Treasurer: Geraldine Green, Scaup Cottage, The Greenway, Stiffkey NR23 1QF (green978@btinternet.com)

FEES ARE DUE FROM 31 OCTOBER

A STANDING ORDER MANDATE FORM IS AVAILABLE FROM THE TREASURER IF REQUIRED.