Hayfield Environmental and Historical Archive Project

The project focuses on the development of Heritage Archive for Hayfield consiting of Environmental and Historical data and making it accessible to all.

(c) Phil Gee 2003 Errosion Snake Path Hayfield
Erosion Snake Path Hayfield - Photo Copyright © Phil Gee - phil@philgee.com

Environmental Archive

Our parish has a diverse environment ranging from blanket bog on the Peak to disused industrial in the valley. The photograph above was taken from a point on the Snake or New Path which is only 18 miles distant from the centre of Manchester, looking towards the Kinder Massif, it illustrates the degree of erosion that has taken place since it was opened in the late 1895.

The area was the birthplace of the 'Right To Roam' movement starting with the mass Trespass of Kinder in 1932, when groups of ramblers from Manchester clashed with the local Gamekeepers and the Constabulary.

The combination of this environmental resource and the skills and commitment of the members of the community put us in a unique situation to address some of the problems and opportunities rural communities have and build a valuable resource for future generations.

Scope and Scalability

Hayfield PrishThe Parish is approximately 33.3sq km in area using a scale of one reference point per 10m sq = 10k points per sq km or 333,000 data reference points to increase detail to 1 sq meter level we have 33,300,000 reference points, quite a daunting prospect a few years ago but with present day desk top processing power and storage the technology is available to deal with such potentially vast amounts of data once it is within the system.
However, not all areas need be treated at the same level of detail; some will be looked at in the cm scale and possibly finer, whilst others would be grouped in to commonalities e.g. monocultures which would only require a few detailed close up, or even microscopic studies to be used as exemplars; until deviations are found and/or a more detailed study is undertaken which would then be referenced to specific points within that area.

In short we start off at the large scale and over time we 'map' specific areas in more detail driven by user need, accessibility, availability of core contributors and trained volunteers, students and field workers.
The human resource is a limiting factor, therefore methodology and techniques are being evolved to address this problem, e.g. field recording/GPS, exception reporting, remote sensing / climate stations, Web cams and user feedback.

Historical Archive

The methodology and techniques involved in developing the Historical Archive will be similar to those used in the Environmental Archive and will be integrated with same; so that each can be set in the context of the other giving a rich picture of the Environmental, Historical and Cultural Heritage of the area.

Scope and Scalability

Edale Cross

We have one hundred and thirteen years of Parish Meeting and Council Records, thousands of Photographic images, Plans, Deeds,Documents, Archeological evidence in addition to the Oral History aspects of our cultural heritage; all of which need recording and integrating. If we are to have an accessible archive that will give a rich picture of life in the area from the first signs of man.

The Historical Archive is being developed by digitising existing material which will be referenced into the system to develop time lines, Virtual Walks as well as downloadable Document and Media files, all of which will be accessible over the internet as well as at local information centers.

At the moment examples can be found on the Hayfield Parish web site at: www.hayfield.info/history

If you would like to contribute to this project
please email: Archive

 

 

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