The Local History Exhibition held at Clavering at the weekend (5-6 April) was a huge success. At least 500 people, probably more, crowded into the Clavering Christian Centre where the exhibition was held. Many of them came back two days running as they had not had time to look at everything in just one day, and many asked if the exhibition could be repeated in the future.

There was certainly lots for them to see and do. The centrepiece was a display of 60 boards telling the story of Clavering chronologically, from prehistory to the Millennium. This was followed by a large gallery of old photographs loaned by local people, showing scenes, events and people of the distant and more recent past.

There was also a table full of original archives on loan from village organisations - normally these are seldom seen and included parish council minutes and charity records back to the 19th century, albums of photos and church material.
 

In another corner family historians were able to carry out their own researches using the local history collection, and many of them stayed for hours doing this - one man came back both days and spent the whole weekend researching.

There was much else to see and do, and visitors also enjoyed superb refreshments, including some authentic medieval nibbles. (Click here to see the recipes). One additional benefit was that the exhibition itself generated many more archival items, as local people sorted out and loaned their own old photos and ephemera.

The weekend was a red-letter day for the Clavering Landscape History Group who organised it as a finale to Project Castle, their three-year lottery-funded project to find out more about Clavering Castle.

At the beginning of the weekend, two outdoor history panels were unveiled, one in the churchyard to explain the castle history (this was unveiled by Mrs Janet Hosford, landowner of the site); the other at Blacksmiths Corner, showing the history of the village (this was unveiled by the parish council chairman, Mr Edward Oliver). The castle panel was part of the Project Castle, but the village history panel was an extra gift from the group to the village.