Otley could become home to the nation's only official Maypole dancing archive - if its "squire" gets her way.

Jennie Hooper, who first got the town's Wayzgoose Wayfarers morris side moving ten years ago and is known as its squire, is taking steps to create a national archive celebrating the great British Maypole and the dances that go with it.

Once the archive is up and running it will be kept in the attic of her home in Cambridge Terrace and become a resource open to the public.

Mrs Hooper wants to hear from anyone who has stories, memories, postcards and pictures of Maypoles and dancing - and it doesn't just have to be linked to Otley.

"There isn't an official maypole archive anywhere in the country although the Centre for English Folk, Song and Dance in London does have some information.

"Setting up a national Maypole archive is a job to be done and why shouldn't it be done right here in Otley," she said.

Mrs Hooper hopes the archive could get underway in time for next year's Maypole celebrations in the town. The Wayzgoose dancers and signers will be marking their tenth birthday and the town is due to get its own maypole back in action.

A massive fundraising campaign has secured enough cash to see a pole returned to Manchester Square just opposite the Civic Centre in time for May Day celebrations.

"The plans are for the pole to be processed through the town on Valentine's Day and then put up in time for May Day when we'll be dancing round it - along with children from some of the local schools. It'll be a big day for Otley," said Mrs Hooper, who is on the town's maypole committee.

Fundraisers including Otley's other morris dancing side, the Buttercross Belles, who were awarded a £25,000 grant from the Local History Initiative and got money from both Otley and Leeds Councils for the new pole project, as well as support from townsfolk and businesses who bought bricks to pave the area to surround the 20ft pole.

The existing flagpole put up in 1962 will remain with the new one - crafted out of a tree from the Farnley Estate - placed in another part of the square, surrounded by flower beds and a stone dancing area. The pole itself will be topped with a design put forward by Farnley schoolboy James Pickles.

For the last nine years Wayzgoose had marked May Day with a dawn dance on Otley Chevin and had decorated the flag pole in Manchester Square but this year its dancers are looking forward to dancing round a genuine Maypole.

Mrs Hooper said: "The Maypole in the centre of towns was a focal point at one point, there are very few left nowadays and it will be lovely to have one back in Otley. We want it to be inclusive and not exclusive, it will be something that the whole community can come together with and something that everyone can enjoy," she added.

Anyone who wants to contact Mrs Hooper about the archive can e-mail her on squirewayzgoose@hotmail.com.