RESIDENTS are invited to share their memories as part of a project looking at changing high streets.

Local historian Chris Walpole has created a memory wall in Hadleigh Library, decorated with a 7ft frieze telling the story of the town’s High Street over the past 200 years.

The frieze features photos of the High Street past and present, as well as old advertisements and facts about the past.

Residents will be encouraged to write their own memories on postcards and add them to the wall.

Similar memory walls will be set up across the country as part of the BBC’s Hands on History project, exploring the history of the British High Street.

A six-part series will be shown on BBC 1.

Mrs Walpole, a Hadleigh resident all her life, has gone back to original documents, such as census returns and old telephone directories, to uncover the High Street’s history.

The 55-year-old, of Willow Walk, Hadleigh, said: “Until 1924, when they built what is now the London Road, the High Street had been the main road for centuries.

“With the new road, the High Street began to decline from the Thirties.

“Before then, the entrance to the Crown was in the High Street and behind the pub was just common land, mostly owned by the brewery and the Salvation Army.

“They changed the entrance around, and shops moved into London Road.”

The project is being led in Hadleigh by the newly-formed Hadleigh and Thundersley Community Archive, and is particularly timely as Castle Point Council is beginning to develop plans for the regeneration of the town centre.

The High Street’s heyday was during the 19th century, when it would have looked very different from today.

Cottages and tearooms in front of St James the Less church meant the place of worship could not be seen from the road.

Where the library now stands was home to the town’s basket maker, and in the 1890s Hadleigh Conservative Club was home to a drapers and the post office.

Clues to the town’s history can still be seen, such as the archway in the parade of shops opposite the Castle pub, which in days gone by led down to a blacksmith's yard.

Mrs Walpole, who is secretary of the archive, said: “It has been quite sad really when you look at what the High Street is like today.”