It was 1999 and newly appointed Parish Councillor, Lizzie Sanders, came forward with ideas to mark the new millennium. It was agreed that to celebrate this she would capture parish life throughout the year by documenting people and events.
From the start of 2000, Lizzie’s enormous task commenced. The result was an album which comprised articles and photographs which she had put together throughout the year. This original data was bound professionally into an album. It wasn’t possible to hold an event to show this album, so various residents within the parish housed this unique book. Suitable appointments were made for residents to view.
The interest in the book soon became apparent and so the ‘Parish of Littlebury Millenium Album’ was produced and given free to each household within the parish.
Interest in local history grew. With a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, plus fundraising, a further book was published in 2005 entitled ‘Littlebury a Parish History.’ 44 local residents were the authors who contributed. Lizzie Sanders and Gillian Williamson co-edited the book and were soon in demand to give talks to various local history groups. From this Lizzie became an active Uttlesford Recorder for Littlebury.
Over the years Lizzie continued to receive information from various sources. In turn there was the occasional opportunity to have small exhibitions.
Then on a warm September evening in 2015 villagers gathered at the village hall garden for a Son et Lumiére, which was a film comprising a wide selection of photos which Lizzie and others had put together to produce images of Littlebury and its hamlets. After this the whole collection of records relating to the parish were collated into 11 bound books. Lizzie presented these to the Gibson Library at a reception in May 2019.
Over the years the money raised by the society has enabled us to provide, among other things, the necessary Public Liability Insurance for Beating the Bounds, various street parties, official village photographs, and the Littlebury Festival in June 2019.
Twenty years on, during the Covid 19 epidemic, Charlotte and Joanna Hancock of Littlebury produced another book which was the ‘Parish of Littlebury Album 2020’, also financed by POLMS. Lizzie was part of this project too, but she sadly lost her long battle with cancer in August 2020 and what was really the heart of POLMS went with her.
As a society we are indebted to Lizzie Sanders for all her achievements within our parish. After careful consideration, our committee has decided that the end of 2025 would be a fitting time for the society to close. We agreed that remaining funds will be shared between three voluntary organisations within the parish: Littlebury Village Hall, Friends of Holy Trinity Church Littlebury and St Peters Church and Community Hub Littlebury Green, all of which operate in the spirit of POLMS and give support to the parish community.
We thank all those residents, ex residents and friends of the villages in the parish for their help and support over the first 25 years of the new millennium.
Jean Cowell – Chair cowelljean@aol.com
See previous Parish of Littlebury Millennium Society Posts and Events