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The site was conceived
in November 2001 to cover just two topics namely, the river and railway.
This rapidly expanded within weeks as suggestions came in that I should
cover other interesting aspects of the community.
It was also very disconcerting
to see how the village was changing over the years with the loss of many
historical buildings, the Maltings, Tannery etc. Although there are many
photographs around in personal collections, nobody had assembled all this
information for easy free access. The technology of the Internet seemed
to be the ideal way of answering enquiries and documenting the village
history for all to see.
From
the response received, it soon became apparent that our local residents
have moved away to all parts of the earth, New Zealand, Australia, South
Africa, USA, Canada etc. three
parish web site.
The site only concerns
itself with historical facts from approx 1900 to the present day, so it
does not encroach on the work of the Local History Society.
However, due to it`s phenomenal expansion, the Mount Bures information
was transferred in November 2006 to its own dedicated domain at "www.mount-bures.co.uk"
The site has expanded to list over 75 subjects, amounting to 200+ pages
covering the two parishes of Bures Hamlet and Bures St Mary.
Since starting, the site has been updated literally hundreds of times
as new or revised information arrives. For example, the One Bell PH page
has been revised and rewritten at least ten times !
The entire site has been re-launched with a new format on five separate
occasions.
Today (Mar 2011) many thousands of hours of work have gone into this site.
Just researching the "War" years in the village, runs into several
hundred hours. Amazingly, ten years since its launch, the flow of information
coming into the site never seems to diminish.
Work is carried out on the site daily, checking incoming messages, posting
news and when time permits, visiting people and places around the area
to seek out and verify new information.
We of course, have the
normal selection of oddball requests, such as "Can you put me
in touch with someone who collects milk bottle tops"
**Sadly we can no longer
undertake genealogy requests. These requests if allowed, would
make up the vast majority of incoming emails and the research work would
take precedence over everything else.
Please use the on-line Forum page, this invariably
will bring you an answer
The "Dept of Education and Skills" funded the running of the
web site up to September 2004.
"Bures-online" won a Regional Award in 2003/4 competing against
other organisations throughout Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.
Both Bures St. Mary and Bures Hamlet now support the web site and publish
their respective "Minutes" bimonthly.
Bures-online has been featured
in the Halstead Gazette, Evening Gazette, East Anglian Daily Times, Suffolk
Free Press and many other local colour magazines.
During the Spring of 2006, one of the researchers Alan Beales carried
out work for an independent television company for the popular TV series,
"Who do you think you are"
Barbara Windsor was the subject of this program.
This uncovered links with John Constable (the artist) and property the
Constable family owned in Bures Hamlet and Mount Bures.
The web site archive now stores in excess of 1500 B & W photographs
together with well over 2,500 scanned documents which have been loaned
over the years.
One recent contribution, resulted in over 600 documents being scanned
which mainly covered the war years in Bures, a really exciting gift.
Although the web site is quite large, it
represents only a small proportion of the research carried out.
With the site getting even more complex
with expanding subjects, the section concerning the "War Years"
in Bures has been moved to another web site (www.bures.me.uk)
Lastly
don't forget this is a Community Web Site, run by the community for the
enjoyment of those who visit the site. The information has come from literally
hundreds of people who have taken the time to submit their memories
and wish to record village
life for others to enjoy reading.
Because some stories may be decades old it is not always possible to verify
every single fact, but we do our very best.
It is not the product of one single person, but
from a collection of interested parties.
We are always
actively seeking sponsorship in order to keep this site up and running.
Although you view these pages without charge, nothing in this world is
really free.
The high overheads, steadily increase each year as the site gets more
demanding in size.
webmaster
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