Exhibition 28-30th May 2022

We were delighted to welcome over 600 visitors to the Wrington Thru the Lens exhibition in the Memorial Hall, which ran from Saturday 28th to Monday 30th May. Displaying more than 500 old photographs of Wrington from the past, including this one of Wrington Football Club from 100 years ago during the 1922-23 season, and over 100 more recent photos of the village, the response and feedback was much appreciated by all those involved in the project.

On display also were old maps of Wrington and some historical artefacts discovered in the village. The exhibition was free to enter and opened from 10.00am until 5.00pm, except Monday 30th when it remained open until 8.00pm. There was a steady flow of people of all ages, and it was particularly special for many residents as they reminisced about the people, places and events they remember seeing or being part of in the past.

With help from local volunteers and history enthusiasts, we have so far discovered more than 1,000 old photos of the village since we launched the project in May 2017, some dating back to the 1880s, and we have started to build content for a digital archive for which we continue to seek out old photos and research related stories of the people, places, and events from Wrington's past. 

Also, we were very excited to launch at the exhibition a new book, Wrington Thru the Lens – A Visual Journey into Wrington’s Past’, which could be purchased at the exhibition, containing more than 200 old photographs and related historical narrative about the village. The book was so popular that we sold out on the first day, and with continual requests for copies, we ordered a re-print to enable us to fulfil the high demand.

We are so grateful for the support, encouragement and sponsorship received so far for the project, our special thanks go out to Wrington Local History Society, Wrington Parish Council, Wrington Village Fair Committee, Robbins Timber, and over 70 personal sponsors who have enabled us to stage the exhibition and publish our new book.

Wrington Fair Week

Following the success of the Wrington Thru the Lens exhibition on 30th April/1st May 2017, we have been invited by the Wrington Village Fair committee to stage another exhibition during Wrington Fair week in May 2022. We’re aiming to display twice as many photographs than we did in 2017, and in addition some of the stories connected with the photos. There will also be a section dedicated to Wrington during World War II, an exhibition originally intended to commemorate the 70th anniversary of VE Day, but due to Covid 19, it was cancelled.

A huge thank you to all those involved in making the project possible. In particular we offer special thanks Valerie Yeoman, Roy Clements and Tony Jefferies who have been a major source of photographic material so far.

If you have any old photographs or historical records related to Wrington and are willing to share them for the purposed of the project, we will be delighted to hear from you.

Exhibition Launch

Wrington Thru the Lens got off to a flying start at the launch exhibition on 30th April/1st May 2017 with 100’s of visitors from the village community attending the event. On display were 180 photographs and images from those assessed and scanned so far, and the original Wrington Estate Sale Catalogue of 1895, 163 pages of information about the sale of 103 Lots consisting of residential, agricultural, manorial and sporting property. The 6,000 acres included twenty-six farms and parts of the village of Wrington, Redhill and Burrington, which also included the Golden Lion Hotel and the Darlington Arms.

Visitor feedback has been extremely positive. ‘It was brilliant’ said one visitor, ‘Well done everyone involved, we were so impressed’ said another, ‘really, really good, absolutely fascinating’ said another. Particularly interesting was the amount of people who attended the exhibition who recognised family names and ancestors from the photographs going back to the late 1800’s who hadn’t seen the pictures before the exhibition. ‘We were thrilled to re-unite family members with old photographs of ancestors and print copies for them at the launch, At times it felt like a scene from the TV show who do you think you are’, commented  organiser John Rubidge. ‘As the purpose of the exhibition was to stimulate awareness about the project, we were delighted with the response and feedback’ added John.

A huge thank you to all those involved in making the project possible.  In particular, we would like to thank Valerie Yeoman who has been a major source of photographic material for the launch exhibition, and Richard Thorn who has provided invaluable advice and access to the Wrington Website to enable us to use it as a channel to create the digital archive. Also, many thanks to the generosity and support of Business West (Bristol Chamber of Commerce) for sponsoring the launch photographic competition and resources for our first exhibition.

The next key phase of the project is to seek sponsorship and to submit an application for Heritage Lottery Funding by the end of 2017. All being well we’ll be able to access enough funding and support to make our ambition a reality. In the meantime our volunteers will continue to gather photographic material and other historical documents to scan and develop the digital archive.