AN interactive website has been launched through a project that is recording the history of two of Worcestershire's villages.

The Witley's Oral History Group has been detailing Little Witley and Great Witley's past after forming in 2013 and securing a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £2,600 a year ago.

Led by volunteers from the local community, the Group has been recording interviews with a wide range of people who live or have lived in the area in order to record and capture their memories of village life over the past 80 years so that future generations will better understand and appreciate how the communities were formed.

Volunteers have now developed the systems for editing and filing the recordings and have also collected photographs, other memorabilia and text content about the villages. This mixture of material is now being brought together under the umbrella of the new website.

Visitors to the website can now see the project in action online at www.witleysoralhistory.org and find news about the project, view the group’s archive and see the range of subjects that the group intends to cover.

The website content is organised under three themes of ‘People’, ‘Places’ and ‘Subjects’. Clicking on ‘People’ will lead to the names of people interviewed by the Group, ‘Places’ will lead to pictures and stories about places such as Great Witley School, The Old Bakery, the Post Office and many others. Clicking on ‘Subjects’ will lead to a wide range of activities from the Lord Ednam Rifle League, the Redmarley Hill Climb, the history of farming in the area, the development of education, the changing face of transport and so on.

Alternatively, people can browse the online map to locate local places of interest and let visitors click through for more details.

Simon Prior, the member of the group who has been instrumental in developing the website, said: “This is an exciting step forward for our project. The website is very much a work in progress but we hope that local people and now, of course, anyone worldwide with an interest in the area and an internet connection can get a better feel of what the project is trying to do. We could have waited to launch the website when it was all complete and tidy but we thought that it would be far more interesting for local people to share in how the project develops. We hope that by visiting the website, people can see what has been done so far and how they can add to the content by contributing their own memories, stories, photographs and other memorabilia.

Anyone interested in learning more about the project or wishing to contribute material in any way can also contact us through the group’s email which is witleysoralhistory@outlook.com .”

Open days have already been held which saw the group scan many photographs and maps which local people brought in and recordings of people’s stories and memories were also made. Another open day is planned to be held at Little Witley Village Hall on Saturday April 11 from 10am to 3pm.