Explore The Past: Bromsgrove, People & Places
- 13th July 2015
The Sound Domes on Level 2 at The Hive contain clips of oral history interviews, edited by Julia Letts, that are activated to play out when people walk underneath them. The Domes have recently been updated to include new excerpts from interviews about Bromsgrove. As part of the District Council’s Townscape Heritage Initiative, Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service recorded around 70 short audio stories from 19 local people who shared their memories of the shops, cafes and pubs along Bromsgrove’s High Street from the 1940s onwards. Justin Hughes, one of our Project Officers, worked with Bromsgrove Library and local students from the Bromsgrove School to train them in how to carry out interviews. Four of the 11 students were also interviewed to provide a comparisons between the generations. Interviewees remembered details about life in the town before and after the High Street was pedestrianised. There were discussions on the High Street’s former alehouses, the hallelujah lamp, mods and rockers, and bakeries and butchers. Bromsgrove Library and The Bromsgrove Society were also heavily involved in supporting the project, going into the School to help facilitate the interviews and publicising the project.
The sound domes contain a sample of 24 clips to listen to on the 3 domes, which you can do by standing under them, as demonstrated by Justin. We hope that some of these will be available online soon, but in the meantime there are six clips already here on our blog, which were included as one of our Worcestershire Treasures. You can also hear interviews here. There are CDs including the interviews available to purchase from Bromsgrove Library.
You can find out more about the Townscape Heritage Initiative here.
Do you have memories of Bromsgrove High Street that you would like to share with us too? Comment below or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.
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