The role of your local history website and the challenges for the future
Our guest speaker for the January 2026 Shoreham Society talk is Paul Osborne, co-founder of www.Shorehambysea.com. He will present a richly illustrated guide to recent discoveries of local interest and discuss the future challenges of preserving Shoreham’s past. Paul has prepared this synopsis of his talk, with some background about the website and the themes which his talk will address.
The talk is on Friday 16 January starting at 7pm and will be exclusively on Zoom. It is free for all to attend. The Zoom link is at the foot of this page and on our Events page.
The History of our Site
Shorehambysea.com was created in 2004 – initially as a bulletin board – a forum for discussion on anything Shoreham related. This was many years before the creation of Facebook. History seemed to be the richest vein of discussion and discovery and after a few years the Shoreham History Portal was spun off as a standalone resource – building a library of articles, research papers, discussions and image galleries.
Driven by myself and Roger Bateman we curated a significant archive presented online for all to see, for free. Significantly we were given permission to scan and present a large part of the Marlipins photographic and map collections – the Museum had no online presence otherwise. That large collection sat alongside a number of private collections of photographs which were scanned and presented in galleries. After 20 years we now have 9600 images on the site, 600 articles, censuses, directories, maps, videos, and audio recordings. I think the scale and depth of the history archive is unrivalled amongst British local history websites – and we have maintained the free to visit ethos that we began with in 2004.
Is Recording Local History Important?
In Shoreham we are lucky to have the legacy of Henry Cheal and his publications. His researches were made available though his books and his support from 1926 for the physical entity that was the Sussex Archaeological Society’s Marlipins Museum.
In the 21st Century we have different approach. Some museums offer searchable online catalogues, but few have anything more than a tiny proportion of their assets online – the catalogue will simply point you to paying a visit to the actual museum. I would argue that free to access online archives have a comparatively huge reach – with 24/7 availability, searchability of 100% of the resources, and a local and global engagement per month that is more than a bricks and mortar museum’s annual visitor numbers.
Local history is very much a detective story – piecing together clues from incomplete information. We have seen some notable discoveries in recent years.
Case studies:
- Tragedy at Erringham 1942
- Mystery at the big house
- The last rock-breaking cells
- The hidden WW1 seaplane base
- Where were the Dungeons of Shoreham?
- Winding steps – 360 degree viewing
So our objective is to present a broad and deep archive to the widest audience, and expand the collections as material become available or is discovered. Whilst we have plateauxed in the scale of new content we are now publishing – after 20 years we have nearly ‘done Shoreham’s history’ – we have a number of future projects on the go.
The Future:
- Search facility – how to optimise
- Image Mapping project – mapping demonstration
- Oral history project – audio examples
- Volunteering at shorehambysea.com
Does AI have a role in local history?
- Examples – video
- Dangers – name origins case study
Q&A
I hope to be able to encourage some questions and answers throughout and maybe broaden the discussion to talk about what threats we face to local history from the inevitable pollution of research sources by AI.
Paul Osborne
Saving Shoreham’s History
Online on Zoom, Friday 16 January 2026, 7pm. Free to attend.
The Zoom Link is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82462811352?pwd=k3R4LTUsQaB6bt6T9dRdC8EfifSJo7.1
