Name a face
Most of the people in our photographs are unidentified. Even a surname, or “that is somebody from the Fare family”, moves things forward.
Take part
This only works if the village joins in
Almost everything worth having is still in somebody’s loft, album or memory. Here is what we are asking for, what happens to it, and how to help with the work itself.
Photographs and documents
What to send, and what happens to it
Albums, loose prints, postcards, negatives, slides, school photographs, deeds, bills, receipts, programmes, newspaper cuttings, letters that mention a house or a shop. If it touches Hilperton, we would like to see it.
Nothing is too ordinary. A blurred picture of somebody’s garden can settle an argument about a boundary wall; a receipt can date a shopfront; a school photograph can put twenty names to twenty faces.
Nothing is too damaged, either. Torn, faded and water-marked prints still carry information, and scanning does not care about creases.
You keep the original
We would rather come to you. A volunteer can bring a scanner to your kitchen table, copy what you want copied, and leave with nothing but a file. If you would prefer to send a photograph of a photograph taken on your phone, that is a perfectly good start too.
What we do with it
- Copy it at the highest sensible resolution and keep that master file unaltered.
- Record you as the owner, along with any credit you want and whether you are happy for it to be published.
- Catalogue what it shows, when we think it dates from, and how confident we are about that.
- Publish an optimised copy with all location and camera data stripped out.
- Come back to you before it goes up — and take it down again the moment you ask.
Memories and identifications
What you remember is evidence too
It is recorded as memory, attributed to you, and labelled at the confidence you give it. We will never quietly promote a recollection into a fact.
Place a photograph
Which way is the camera pointing? Which building is that? Several of our views are of streets we cannot yet identify with confidence.
Tell a story
What the shop smelled like. Which lane flooded. Who kept the pub. What was pulled down, and roughly when. Partial memories are welcome.
Sit down and be recorded
If you have lived here a long time, an hour with a recorder is one of the most valuable things anyone can give this project.
Volunteering
Give an afternoon, or give a skill
We are at the beginning, so this is a list of people to contact rather than a rota. Tell us what might suit you and roughly how much time you have, and we will be in touch when that part of the work starts. There is no obligation, and no experience is needed for half of it.
Scanning and copying
No experience neededDigitising photographs, postcards and documents at proper resolution — often in someone’s front room, so the original never leaves the house.
Cataloguing and dating
No experience neededRecording what an image shows, where it was taken, who owns it, and how confident we are. The least glamorous and most valuable job on the list.
Recording memories
Training givenSitting down with people who remember the village and recording what they say, with their consent, properly stored.
Documentary research
Some experience usefulCensus returns, tithe apportionments, deeds, probate, trade directories and local newspapers — and writing up what was found and what was not.
Modern viewpoint photography
Some experience usefulRe-photographing historic viewpoints from public land, carefully matched, avoiding private houses, bystanders and number plates.
3D modelling and photogrammetry
SkilledTurning surviving fabric, aerial views and measured features into models that are honest about which surfaces are evidenced and which are inferred.
Web and technical
SkilledKeeping the site, the data and the backups in order — and making sure the archive outlives any one volunteer’s laptop.
Outreach and permissions
No experience neededTalking to families, the parish council, the church and local groups; chasing the permissions that let material be published at all.
What a first afternoon actually looks like
Four or five people, a village hall, two scanners and a laptop. People bring albums. Somebody scans; somebody else sits with the owner and writes down what they say about each picture; somebody keeps the permission forms in order. Everyone goes home with their own photographs, and the archive gains fifty items with their provenance intact.
That single afternoon is worth more than months of anyone sitting at a computer, which is why stage two of the plan matters more than stage four.
What we would ask of you
Care with other people’s property, patience with other people’s memories, and a willingness to write down what you do not know as well as what you do.
Anyone working directly with contributors will be asked to follow the project’s handling and consent notes — a single side of A4, not a training course.
Corrections, objections and removals
If something here is wrong, or you would rather it were not here
Tell us and we will act. You do not have to explain why, and you do not have to prove ownership to ask us to take something down while we look into it.
That applies to a wrong date, a misidentified person, a photograph of your family you did not know was circulating, a view of your home you would rather was not published, or an image you own that has reached us by some route you did not agree to.
We will reply, we will say what we have done, and if we disagree with a factual point we will record your objection alongside our position rather than quietly ignoring it.
Our default is caution
Where a request is about privacy rather than accuracy, we take the material down first and discuss it afterwards. Nothing on this site matters more than someone’s comfort with how their family or their home appears on it.
How we handle evidence and privacy
The rules we work to
Confidence is recorded, not implied
Every item carries one of four levels — confirmed, probable, possible or unidentified — with the reason attached. A date without a reason is not a date.
- Confirmed
- supported by a dated document or a named, reliable source
- Probable
- strongly suggested by the evidence, but not documented
- Possible
- a reasonable working estimate, could easily be wrong
- Unidentified
- we do not yet know
- Interpretation
- an evidence-led reconstruction, not a photograph
Reconstruction is argument, not record
Paintings and 3D models are always labelled as interpretation, always shown with the evidence they derive from, and never presented as historic photography.
Ownership stays where it is
We take a copy and record you as the owner. Most items currently say source not yet established — that is recorded openly rather than left blank.
Present-day privacy comes first
Public copies carry no location or camera data. We favour general village scenes over close views of modern private houses, and avoid identifiable passers-by and vehicle registrations. Where a comparison photograph would show someone’s home in detail, we ask first or we do not publish it.
Faces are obscured for publication, never in the archive
Where a twentieth-century photograph shows someone identifiable, we can pixelate faces in the published copy. The master file is never altered, the region is stored as a note against the record, and removing it later restores the original exactly.
Things come down on request
Without argument, and without asking you to justify it.
Keep in touch
Not ready to send anything yet?
Leave an email address and we will let you know when there is something worth seeing, or a scanning afternoon near you. No more than once a month.