Formed in early 2018, we are a small group adding to the Archive
started by Eileen English, village postmistress 1947-81. We now have
the Horner Archive, donated by the family, three generations of whom
ran the village shop 1907-1994 & whose name has been retained. This
includes photos, letters, shop ledgers, newscuttings, books and a few
objects. The archive of Yoxford Gallery, founded in the 1960s by Vera
Delf, has been donated by daughter Deborah Ardizzone. The Thompson
Collection, 10 large albums of photographs and postcards collected by
resident Fred Thompson, was donated by his family. This has now been
scanned and digitised with funding from the Scarfe Trust.
We put on two exhibitions in 2018, ‘Shopping in Yoxford in the 20thC’
and another on WWI relating to the Centenary of the 1918 Armistice. We
held one on ‘Schooldays and Health’ in 2019. None were held during the
Covid pandemic. In July 2023 we put on ‘Horners:Three Generations of
a Village Shop’ and over the August Bank Holiday week-end ‘Yoxford’s
Social Life in the 20thC’ at St Peter’s church. Twice in 2024 we showed
‘Putting Names to Faces’ in the Village Hall to try & identify several
photos of groups & individuals, also unknown events. In Spring of 2025
we mounted ‘Yoxford at Work’, showcasing all the trades and
occupations in the village. This will be repeated in the Autumn. We
endeavour to raise funds at these exhibitions by offering tea and cakes
and also accepting general donations. This is in order to cover our own
printing costs and archival-quality storage materials.
In 2019 we produced a historic walking trail leaflet, with sponsorship
from all the village businesses. We have recently re-printed this with
revised sponsorship as five of the local businesses had closed.
If anyone has any photographs, documents or artefacts relating to
Yoxford’s history these can be donated to the collection, or loaned for
scanning. The collection is securely housed and stored in acid-free
materials, the initial supply of which was partly funded by the Parish
Council. Funding has been secured for metal storage cabinets and we
now have three of these.
In addition we should like to collect memories of growing up in the
village, which can then be put on the village website where you will find
much of our research for people to read.