Ripley and District Heritage Trust

• • Joyce Slack
  • Chair
• • Tim Castledine
  • Butterley Project Manager

 We hope to preserve some of the heritage of the
area, especially its industrial past, in the form of displays, collections,
publications and recordings. We aim to make our collection available to the
public, both in person and in digital form, and to work with schools and other
organisations to teach young people about what Ripley was once like. 
We want people in the area to appreciate how their immediate ancestors lived, and the forces that shaped their lives. We hope they will gain pride in their past, and appreciate that the area was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution that altered the course of history.

We wish to preserve the heritage of all aspects of the
town’s history, and that of the immediate surrounding area. Our collection
includes artefacts, documents, pictures , books and some digital media. We have
made considerable progress in cataloguing the collection and have begun to
collect and record recollections of our oldest inhabitants.

Whilst keeping a broad remit, we are particularly concerned
with heritage of the Co-op movement in the town, once one of the biggest in the
Midlands, and that of the Butterley Company which from its foundation in 1790
until its closure in 1986 dominated the town. We are campaigning to try to preserve some of the site, the importance of
which has been recognised by its English Heritage listing.

• Campaigning/lobbying
• Conservation
• Research