A NEW project to help pupils in Selby learn more about the town’s heritage, has been given £9,000.

Mariners, Merchants and Monuments has been given the grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund, enabling a project between Selby Town Council, Selby and District Family History Group, and Year Eight students from Selby High School to find out more about the people buried at the town’s cemetery.

Students will work with the family history group to find out more about the town’s former residents buried in Selby Cemetery, and will work with professional actors to create short plays based on life in the town more than a century ago. They will also create walking guides for visitors to the site.

Sarah Burgess, curriculum area leader for Humanities at the school, said: “We are thrilled to be part of this exciting new project. The town’s rich history is represented by memorials and burials in Selby cemetery, reflecting a cross section of society, industries and people.

“Working with partners in the local community, we hope their study will open up avenues of research and knowledge that can be passed onto future generations and inspire young people to engage in their own, and the town’s, heritage and past.”

Charles Bryce from the group said: “It is important that young people can use the information we have to enable them to learn about people who were responsible for the development of the town and how our forebears lived.”

Town Councillor Melanie Davis said: “The intention is not only to honour those who could be referred to as the ‘great and the good’. We want to ensure that the way of life of ordinary Selebians is marked and commemorated too, as their role in the town’s development was equally important.”

The plays will be performed in the town this summer, and information will be shared with other local schools, on new noticeboards around the cemetery site, and online at selbytowncouncil.gov.uk and selby-high.org.uk