Funding awarded for research into the Good Friday tradition of walking to Lamorna

Source: The Western Morning News

"A Cornish village’s history project which stages regular exhibitions on a variety of subjects has been awarded £3000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The grant will enable expansion of the Newlyn Archive to join forces with the Lamorna Society, a group that promotes the art, literature and social history of Lamorna Valley.

The collaboration will enhance the range of material available, bring extra resources and improve skills to enable more people to access the collections.

Newlyn Archive began as a collection of mainly digital material, with the purpose of collecting, preserving and sharing written, pictorial and other factual elements relating to the history of Newlyn and its immediate area.

In 2012 it expanded to include West Cornwall Art Archive, a collection of artefacts and photographs about artists associated with the port and with Newlyn Art Gallery.

The funding will also allow for a new project called When Newlyners Walked to Lamorna.

Dr Pamela Lomax, honorary Newlyn archivist, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have got the award and our team of volunteers have already begun work, which we expect will be completed in October, when we hold a two-day exhibition called Newlyn at Play which will feature the famous walk to Lamorna that took place each year on Good Friday.”

A spokesman for the Heritage Lottery Fund in Cornwall said: “Sharing heritage is a wonderful opportunity for communities to delve into their local heritage and we are delighted to be able to offer this grant so that the When Newlyners Walked to Lamorna project can embark on a real journey of discovery. Heritage means such different things to different people, and HLF’s funding offers a wealth of opportunities for groups to explore and celebrate what’s important to them in their area.”