CLAVERING LOCAL HISTORY COLLECTION
The Clavering Local History Collection is the name I have now given to the combination of the material passed on to me, before her death last year, by Eileen Ludgate, and my own research material gathered both before and after I took over from Eileen as Local History Recorder for Clavering. Eileen's legacy to the village largely consists of research notes and other material accumulated over 30+ years by herself and her sister Joan, with the support of the Clavering & Langley Local History Group. Most original items were sent to the ERO, so the material is largely secondary in nature, but nevertheless of great local interest. I hope that in due course it will feature in a revival of the local history exhibitions which Eileen used to organise, and that we may have one in 2008 to coincide with the conclusion of the current Project Castle.
Over the past few months I have started cataloguing the Collection on a new database known as RUTH (Recording Uttlesford History) with the aim of putting a description of it on the Uttlesford Local History Recorders’ website www.ulhr.org.uk – the first 50 or so entries can be seen on this site by clicking on RUTH database, then putting 'Clavering' into the advanced search box [the online version of the database is still at the testing stage so may be disappear occasionally during improvements].
The input to the database is a long-term project and will take many years to complete, but a start has been made with the wills and other items. When existing material has been catalogued, I hope the database can start including archival items held by organisations and institutions in the village, with the eventual aim of having a digital catalogue of all historical material relating to Clavering. You will also find material on there relating to Radwinter, Great Chesterford and Newport, and later on more Uttlesford villages.
The combination of my own and Eileen's material already covers a very wide range including parish registers, census, family reconstitution, correspondence, charities, church and chapel, gravestones, courts, deeds, education, houses, manorial, Poor Laws, sale catalogues, wills, photographs, lecture notes, field names, hedgerow studies, newspapers, landscape history, oral history, parish magazines, archaeology and various items of ephemera.
Anyone who can loan photographs or documents for photocopying, scanning or digital photographing to add to the Collection is welcome to contact the Local History Recorder as below. Almost anything is of interest to future generations and will ensure that the information is not lost, as has happened to so many potential archives. The fact that we have such a good input to the launch of the Clavering Local History Collection is entirely to the credit of Eileen Ludgate, and she was also my inspiration for the 20+ years in which I have been involved in history. It is very appropriate that there is now a memorial in the church recording her contribution to Clavering life.
Jacqueline Cooper, Clavering Local History Recorder