Let your fingers do the walking (From Gazette Series)

Let your fingers do the walking

WITH 1,500 pages and numerous images, a newly launched website on the history of Dursley is certainly packed with information. It includes a virtual tour of the town featuring each and every street and highlights Dursley's industrial heritage. KIRSTY RAMSDEN met the site's creator, Andy Barton, to find out more.

SURPRISINGLY Andy Barton, the man behind a new history-based website on Dursley, is a virtual newcomer to the town.

He moved to the area less than five years ago from Great Yarmouth but being a newcomer has inspired him to find out about the town.

He said: "I think it is important when you moved into an area to find out about it."

He has a passion for local history, particularly an area's industrial heritage.

This interest may partly be inspired by his engineering background, although now, aptly, he works in the computer industry.

The father-of-two did some digging and delving to find out about Dursley's past.

"I thought other people would also want to know about it," he said.

"I thought shall I do a book and I do want to do a book one day but a book is a long-term project so I started with a website."

He had created a local history website in Norfolk when he lived in the area and still receives questions and information via e-mail on that site.

The Norfolk site attracts hits from all over the world and Mr Barton envisages similar interest in the Dursley pages.

In fact, he explained, the site was already linked to the site of a Canadian researching Gloucestershire history.

Mr Barton has endeavoured to create an interactive site.

He has included a virtual tour which uses more than 1,000 images alone and allows the user to taken an online "walk" around the town.

As well as including every street in Dursley, the virtual tour also contains many of the footpaths.

The site, Dursley Glos Web, has oral histories supplied by Cam FM.

He said: "I intend to add more of these when I can as I feel they bring more life to the project."

Mr Barton has highlighted Dursley's industrial heritage including information on Lister Petter and the former Bailey Newspaper Group, to name just two.

He has featured the railway history of the town and has plans to include details of its carpet-making, pin-making and rope-making past.

He said: "Doing the site has enabled me to learn a lot about the town of Dursley and to meet a lot of people.

"People have been interested in telling me things and have given me information."

He has spent 18 months working on the site and sees it as an on-going project - he has a couple of thousand more archive photographs which need processing.

The site features information about other areas of the town history including pubs, schools and churches.

He hopes the site will be used by schools in the town.

He has a particular interest in education as his wife is a teacher and he is a governor of Dursley Church of England Primary School.

He has looked at old mapping and old postcards for the site.

Mr Barton is to add burial records from the town in the new year which he anticipates will prove a boon to those researching family history.

He said: "I don't want to look into the future particularly but have to look at today and will be continuing to take photos around the town."

The site can be found at dursleyglos.org.uk

Pictured: Dursley resident Andy Barton who has set up a website that specialises in local history GJA1148H03