Share Knowledge

You have a lot of local knowledge that we don’t have.

You may have memories of local people and places, maybe ways of doing things that no longer happen.

Perhaps you have family photographs that would give us information we don’t currently have.

Such expertise as we have is based not just on historical research but on knowledge which people have shared with us.

When we put on an exhibition called ‘To Market, To Market’ about Thornbury’s history as a market town, we showed photographs from 1911 (when livestock was sold in Castle Street and High Street) and from the 1930s, the 1970s and 1990s (when the livestock market had its own site in Rock Street).

We learned a huge amount from local people during that exhibition. The last auctioneer of sheep and cattle told us his stories. Hauliers who had brought animals in lorries across the Severn came to our preview. So did several Thornbury mayors: the one then in office, one who had presented cups and rosettes to prize cattle and the one who had been in office when the market finally closed in 1996. Local farmers contributed pictures and prize cups to the exhibition. They all had stories to tell.

What do you know about the history of Thornbury and the surrounding villages? Are you willing to share it with us?

If you have photographs you’d like to share, we can scan them so that you can keep the originals.

We always want to learn more…