Horsforth Historical Society, which was formed 15 years ago, is to be relaunched next month.

The idea of the relaunching was put forward by Councillor Chris Townsley, the society's chairman and accepted by the committee, with a view to bringing the society's work to the attention of more villagers.

Coun Townsley, who has been the society's chairman for the past 15 years, says the relaunch will be held at the Mechanics' Institute, Town Street, Horsforth, on September 15 (7.30pm).

There will be a couple of slides shows which will include an 800 year potted history of Horsforth by Coun Townsley, while the other by Ron Hartley, manager of the Horsforth Village Museum, which is run by the society, will deal with Victorian times in the village.

There will be displays of books and booklets about the work of the society and artefacts from the museum.

"We want to try and get the people of Horsforth interested not only in the historical society but also in the museum. We need people to help staff the museum at the weekend. At the present time we have an empty museum due to it being closed for almost nine months for refurbishhment. Once this work is complete we will need help to put the items, which are in store, back into the museum," he said.

"We are not trying to get people to simply roll up their sleeves and do some work but we are trying to get them interested in what we do," he said.

During the next two or three weeks members are hoping to begin painting two of the rooms in the museum.

Coun Townsley said the museum was popular with the public, particularly with children who often visited the museum as part of their studies.

He said that last year alone about 1,000 children visited the museum.

It is hoped the museum will be re-opened by September or early October.

The museum, which is housed in a 250-year-old building which contains Leeds City Council's housing office on The Green, has had a new roof and is now having extensive internal refurbishment.

While the refurbishment work is being done, hundreds of museum pieces are having to be stored in another part of the building.

Ron Hartley, the museum's manger, said he hoped the work would be completed before the autumn.

"It will then take us about two months to set up the exhibitions once again. Hundreds of exhibits, some of them quite valuable, have had to be stored away during the refurbishment. At the moment the room where they are stored

resembles an Aladdin's cave," he said.

Mr Hartley said a new exhibition was being planned which would be entitled Flappers and Flower Power and would deal with the period from the 1920s to the 1960s.

There will still be one room with a permanent exhibition dealing with the history of Horsforth.

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