A HISTORY group looking into life in the village 100 years ago has discovered Cornish miners and Norfolk farmworkers all flocked to the area in the early 1900s.

Great Ayton History Society is looking to discover the origins, occupations and living conditions of people living in the village in 1911.

The idea began while the history society was working on another project to explore the stories behind all the men from Great Ayton who fought and died in the First World War. It became apparent that a lot of people had moved into the village just before the outbreak of the war from across the country.

Using information taken from a range of sources, including the 1911 census and Ordnance Survey maps of the village, the group began to form a picture of where its inhabitants came from.

They discovered the relatives of many of today’s residents had come from the south of England to work in the mines under Roseberry Topping and surrounding area.

It included many former Cornish mineworkers, who came looking for work when many of their county’s mines closed, along with farm workers from Norfolk, who in many cases had fallen victim to the increased mechanisation of agriculture.

David Taylor, from Great Ayton History Society, said: “One of the things we noticed as we went through the census was the number of people who moved into the village to work in the mines here.

"Quite a high percentage of the village weren’t born here.

“When you start to look around there’s people who came from all over the place to work here.

“The mines went under Roseberry Topping and the area around and mined ironstone and whinstone. It’s a very hard stone and must have been hard to mine. It was used to surface roads and paths.

“Mining for ironstone under Roseberry Topping was supposedly blamed for the collapse in 1912, when there was a landslip on Roseberry Topping.

"People said it was caused by the mines, but others weren’t so convinced and thought it would have happened anyway.”

The group is aiming to officially launch its project in October at Great Ayton Discovery Centre, when it hopes descendants of the village’s 2,319 inhabitants in 1911 can provide photographs of family members listed on the census, or any other information on the people and businesses in Great Ayton at the time. It is also hoped that analysis of the data contained in the census will also help family historians trace relatives in the village at the time.

The group will also have a stand at Stokesley Show on September 22.

For further information email David Taylor on; dtbt45@outlook.com