Friday timelines

I’ve entered some buildings into the draft timelines. Some of them were buildings that I used in the promo video (Ruckinge Church, the Outlet, the Clock Tower for example).

Others have been suggested by people on Facebook. Mersham Le Hatch for example, Westwell Mill, Eastwell Towers.

It’s interesting to me that I live only a few miles away from Westwell Mill but knew nothing about it. Similarly I drive past Eastwell Towers practically every week but knew nothing of its history.

In fact, if I think about it, prior to starting this project I only really knew the history of my own village – and that I sort of take for granted.

This has caused a minor problem.

People haven’t been suggesting buildings on their own community Facebook groups because ‘everybody knows about them’.. I might not put Wye College on the Our Place Wye site, for example, because to the residents of Wye (and readers of the Our Place Wye facebook group) it’s too bleeding obvious?

But the project is about the whole borough of Ashford. As a Wye resident I’m probably not alone in not having the foggiest about buildings in Tenterden or Lenham…

I think publishing the timelines fairly frequently would be a way to rectify this problem. If people see that buildings in their communities haven’t been inserted, they might suggest inclusion.

I think I will republish the timelines on this site every Friday afternoon – and on the Facebook group as well.

Here goes:

Ashford 1000-1300: https://time.graphics/line/396597

Ashford 1300-1500: https://time.graphics/line/396605

Ashford 1500-1700: https://time.graphics/line/396609

Ashford 1700-1900: https://time.graphics/line/396610

Ashford 1900-Present Day: https://time.graphics/line/396611

Timelines…

I’ve been building some timelines using Time Graphics software which will catalogue the buildings in the Ashford area. This is new software for me so it’s been proving an interesting experience getting to know it…

I’m making five timelines:

Ashford 1000-1300
Ashford 1300-1500
Ashford 1500-1700
Ashford 1700-1900
Ashford 1900-present day

I’ve made most progress with the Ashford 1900-present day which I’m going to put below. The others are going to be more complicated due to the difficulty in dating buildings.

The aim is to input about 20 to 30 buildings on each timeline… if we get more for a particular era, we might have to boot some off. 🙂

Here goes:

https://time.graphics/line/396611

Project launch

It feels slightly strange to be launching a project by just sitting at my desk in my office, pressing numerous ‘share’ buttons on social media… but at 11.20 am that’s what happened.

I did actually post the animation on the Funder Films facebook page last night. It was seen by about 40 people, liked a couple of times, shared twice…

It’s difficult to predict what will happen. Maybe only about 10 people will join the Facebook group.. or maybe 10,000? I hope it’s somewhere in between. 10,000 is definitely too many.

Nothing has happened yet anyhow. Perhaps everyone is thinking of their favourite buildings…

Ashford in 100 Buildings Promo from Funder Films CIC on Vimeo.

Very animated

I spent the morning making an animation for the launch of the #ashford100buildings project which is tomorrow.

The film features the logo which I featured yesterday and then several local buildings that I photographed earlier this month. There’s the Curious Brewery, the Outlet, the Archbishop’s Palace at Charing, the primary school in Woodchurch, the Clock Tower in Ashford… In total I think there are about 12 buildings in the animation and I’ll be putting them in the timeline later today to start us off… only 88 or so to go…

In the end I did two versions. The second was a great improvement on the first and I daresay that a third version would be even better.. but I’ve got fed up with shifting little blocks around. It does the job.

Project logo is a gogo…

Many thanks to Rob Barker for the fantastic logo that he has designed for the #ashford100buildings project.

We had quite a discussion about which buildings to include – wanting ideally to reflect ancient and modern, rural and urban. The buildings selected are St Mary’s Church, Elwick Place and the Curious Brewery building in Ashford and Willesborough Windmill.

While most of the buildings are in Ashford town centre, the project is also aiming to include the villages in the surrounding area. We thought for a while about titling it ‘Ashford and Villages’ but went for the slightly more formal Borough of Ashford.

Perhaps you might have other ideas as to what could have been included or missed out.. do let us know if you do.

This has clearly taken a huge amount of work. Rob has supplied me with black and white versions and a coloured black and white version (what is this I wonder?) I am extremely grateful. He can be reached through his partner’s company – Sally Barton Illustration.

How far back?

Sometime ago, when I was first thinking about this project, I was wondering how far back we should go. Should I include archaeology? Broken buildings below the ground – but they were right and proper buildings once were they not?

But then again the history is not quite so evident when it’s been taken over by nature and now rests unseen below the ground. So, after a little thought, I thought that I’d leave it be. Maybe think about another project specially for archaeologists and other people who like digging.

Nevertheless I wanted this blog to start with a picture of an archaeological site – evidence of early human habitation in the Ashford area. This is the Long Barrow at Jackets Field near Boughton Aluph. Constructed in the Fourth Millennium BCE by early Neolithic pastoralists. Only discovered in 1970 and as yet not fully investigated.

Nature is all powerful. If I included all ruins in this blog there’d be a lot of pictures of green fields and woods like this one.