Local historians meet family researchers
A street, a churchyard, or a parish brings together the people who study the area and the people tracing ancestors who lived there. Each side answers questions the other could not.
Places
Browse local history, place by place
Any place can have its own page on Local Past, gathering the photos, records, and memories tied to that spot. Search the map to see what people have already shared near a location, open a pin to read it, or start a page for a place that is not here yet.
Clusters
1–910–4950–199200+
Individual pins appear when you zoom in. Click one to open its page.
In view
1,000
places on Local Past
How the map works
- Search for a location. Type a town, parish, postcode, or address. The map flies you there.
- Clusters show density. Numbered circles group nearby places together. Larger, darker circles mean more places in that area. Click a cluster to zoom in.
- Zoom in to see individual pins. Gold pins appear as clusters break apart. Click one to open its page.
- Found a place that is not here yet? Add it as part of your first entry about it.
Why start with a place
The same building, lane, or field has been important to lots of different people over time. When the place becomes the anchor, everything they each know about it can sit in one spot.
Local knowledge is welcome here
If you live in a place, you know things no archive will ever hold. The shop that used to be on the corner. The flood of 1968. The family that ran the farm before it was sold. Add it, and it lasts.
Photos that would otherwise be lost
Boxes in attics, scans in shared drives, old postcards on a shelf. Pin them to the place they show and they become findable to everyone researching there.
Add to the map
Share a photo of a place you love
The house you grew up in. The lane behind the church. The pub that is not there anymore. Even one photo, with a sentence about what it is and when it was taken, anchors that place in the record for everyone else researching there.
Find the spot on the map above, then add a photo or what you know about it.
A place to keep what the community already shares
All over Facebook, in parish halls, in WhatsApp groups, in shoeboxes, people are already sharing historical photos and memories of the places they care about. That work is brilliant. The trouble is that a great photo posted in a group on a Tuesday is hard to find again on a Friday, and almost impossible six years later.
Local Past is a place to put it down. Pin the photo to the building or the street. Add a line about what you know. Other people researching that spot will find it, add what they know, and keep it alive.