Potton History Society

Preserving Potton's History & Heritage Since 1977

The Society has a growing archive collection of photographs, documents, maps, scrapbooks, microfiche, films, slides and books of Potton past and present. This also includes the 'Potton Car'. These may be used for research into any aspect of local history. The collection is maintained by the Society with help from donations but is held on private property thus restricting public access. Copies of items for which the Society has copyright can be provided for private use for a fee to cover costs (please see below for further details). The Society is always pleased to receive new material for its collection. Help with enquiries such as family history may be limited by the free time that members can make available.

A. The Photographic Collection

The collection was started by Mrs Yates in 1977.

Today over 180 albums hold more than 7000 photographs collected since 1977. The collection has been digitised to make it easier to use in the future.They are stored in a custom made cabinet made by society member Keith Lawrence. The collection is kept up to date with new pages and albums.The sample page below shows the style of the albums with each photograph captioned and researched.

Potton Tannery prior to demolition in 1972. Reasearch by Mrs Yates.

B. The Document Collection
	The Society has collected over five filing cabinets of Potton related documents. These are now stored in special wallets. Each one is linked to a photograph album to provide the detail behind the topic. The current plan is to fully index and digitise the collection to enable it to be used by all those interested in Potton's heritage.

By December 2008 the document collection had been sorted and re-housed in special files. Most had been indexed into a computer file and a start made on digitising each item. Around 2,400 files containing nearly 10,000 pages of material are now indexed. This is planned to form the basis of a web site which will enable anyone to discover what is in the archives and help to add to it.

New shelving at PHS Archive Rooms was installed in March 2007 and houses our collection of scrapbooks including our continuing collection started in 1977.

As of December 2009 we have nearly 4000 files covering over 19000 pages of information!!

To download the latest PHS archive index as a pdf file please click here

To see some of the latest additions to the Archive please click here.

Don't have Adobe Reader™? Please click here

Potton History Society Needs Your Help!!!!

Donations To The Archive

We are constantly seeking to expand our archive and therefore we are appealing directly to you for help. Do you have memories of Potton that you could share? Have you photos or documents that may be of interest? The Society uses a strict copyright policy allowing you total control over the use of any donations. To send donations in digital form please use the email address below and complete and post the donation form available here. For physical donations please contact us directly or complete the form and post to

Potton History Society, c/o Station House, Potton, Bedfordshire, SG19 2PZ.

We also need help in indexing and digitising the collection. Contact Peter Ibbett (pottonhistory@aol.com) for more information.

Use of Archive Materials

The Society holds a variety of material to provide a local history archive for the use of all those connected with or interested in Potton. Copies of items for which the Society holds copyright can be provided for a small donation to the Society. Requests for digital copies of Society material must be submitted directly to the Committe at the email address above. For details of use of archive material policy, prices and a form to be submitted with such requests please click here. For a fuller list of archive contents than the one used in the page above please click here.

We hope that you have found this information useful. If you would like to make a donation to help enable our work to continue please go here.