Proud of your house? Tell The House Archive about it!
Proud of your house? New website lets you tell the world about it
If you have a house with an interesting history, unusual design, undergoing renovation or you are just proud of it because it's yours, now you can tell the world about it at www.TheHouseArchive.com. This new website - the first of its kind - enables anyone to add pictures and text about their own (or others') houses.
The House Archive highlights that the UK has a good record of cherishing the very best of our houses, but when it comes to the vast majority of the 6 million or so houses built before 1900 we have a poor record of appreciating them and therefore preserving them. A great proportion of these houses, plus many built since 1900, are, in The House Archive's view, worth celebrating.
Martin Ludlow of The House Archive, says, "we treasure and preserve nearly everything else that is old, from cars to furniture, but the UK's houses get neglected. Even the most mundane old houses contain beautiful craftmanship, have features that tell us how people lived and thought in the past, and have the imprint of many occupants over a long period. They are worth celebrating and publicising".
The House Archive website's content is provided by contributions from ordinary householders, local historians and anyone else with an interest in the houses in their area. We all know interesting facts about our houses and the houses we have been in contact with through our lives; and most of us have old documents and photographs of our current and past houses. In The House Archive's view, these are all worth recording and publicising, and their website enables people to do this for the first time.
Martin Ludlow further comments, "we have designed the website so that minimal computer skills are needed to add content to the site - if you can use a computer to type a letter, you can add text and pictures, create a webpage for your house and create links to other pages. We want everyone who owns a house of some interest (to themselves, their families, people in their local area, or nationally) to create a webpage for their house. We also encourage people to add content to the pages others have created, where they have relevant pictures or know something about the history of other houses. The householder gains by being able to present their house in the most advantageous light, and the local historian gains by having a space where they can share the results of their research, and access to a wealth of information never before available".
The House Archive website is essentially a space on the internet allowing collaboration between thousands of people living all over the UK. This collaboration may be real, where those collaborating know each other; or virtual, where those collaborating have shared interests but no face-to-face contact. The end result is that, by collaborating, they build up an archive of the UK's houses and neighbourhoods that will turn into a rich resource for use now and in the future.
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