The Research Group started meeting in 2005 with the principle aim of encouraging members of HHS to undertake local historical research by investigating the history of their house. This proved popular and stimulated a number of local residents to look in detail at the story of their house and resulted in the first of the current series of exhibitions held during Wakes Week.   Photo the Retrospective exhibition of 2013, when much of the work of the previous ten years was exhibited in the Methodist Hall.

Eventually the members of the group had accumulated enough information to consider publication resulting in a series of booklets which have been distributed to all members of the Society and lodged with the Derbyshire Record Office.    Click Here to access booklets. The fourth Booklet was published in December 2018.

In 2011 a joint project with Castleton Historical Society was launched to research the medieval history of the villages with the emphasis on the history of the common people. The project addressed the history through documentary research,

landscape archaeology

and a series of test pits excavated in both villages.

The project was funded by a substantial grant from HLF and overseen by Dr Bill Bevan, a well known Sheffield based professional archaeologist. The publications in 2012, from this work is  available on this website..

Since then our recent research has concentrated on aspects of WWI history, published in the Booklets 2015 and  2018 (see above). An exhibition covering the four years of the conflict was presented in Hope Church, during Wakes Week in 2018.

Through the Covid years we kept going with new themes on the Churchyard; Notable names in the Village  “The centenary of the publication of Notes from a Peakland Parish by William Smith Porter”  and in 2024, concentrated on Objects in Plain Sight -but not always seen.
A new Booklet of Rediscovering Hope was published in 2023, distributed to members and available on this website
Plans are ahead for 2025, why not join in, or come along and see what we are up to.

NEXT MEETING OF THE GROUP  26 November 2024  Last meeting for this year

You are very welcome to join us.

We meet at 7.30pm to share our on-going individual research and offer advice and help where we can. Usually on the third Tuesday of the month. Contact Di Curtis  by emailing the website address for details.