A CHURCH have shared plans to create an interactive walking history of the church.

Members of the community are invited to come together and share their memories of St Peter’s at Darwen Heritage Festival in September.

The church will host an afternoon tea where people will have the chance to share stories, photographs and videos from weddings, christenings, church events and societies.

The plan is to create a heritage trail using these photographs and videos, that will run through the building and depict the the church’s history through people’s memories.

St Peter’s Church is in the process of bidding for more than £300,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to make repairs to the church roof.

The church has received the first grant for the development stage and has used the £11,670 initial funding to hire a consultant and architect and now surveys and inspections will be carried out to work out a plan going forward.

The second part of the application will be submitted in November and, if it is successful, work will begin next Easter.

However, in order to order to qualify for the grant, the church must undertake a project that promotes the heritage of the church.

Church Curate Rev David Stephenson said: “As part of our work with the Heritage Lottery fund we are seeking to promote the heritage of the church, and of course the community.

“One of the obvious things to do would be to create a new building guide, but that wouldn’t tell visitors anything about the community.

“We want to bring a bigger picture, a more accurate picture of the heritage of the church.

“When we’re talking about the history of the building we don’t want to just be talking about the stones.

“We want to tell the stories of the people who have been coming here for nearly 200 years.”

The church was built between 1827 and 1829, it was originally called Holy Trinity. It became St Peter’s in 1972 when its parish merged with those of St John’s and St George’s, which were demolished.

Rev Stephenson said: “St George’s and St John’s are an important part of our history.

“We still have people within the community who attended those churches before the merge.

“It’s so important to keep the memories alive.”

For more information call 01254 703929.