THE history of Wargrave came to life when keen history lovers were shown a snapshot of the village's past.

Hundreds of photographs, documents, maps and artefacts from the Wargrave Local History Society went on display on Saturday, June 22, at the Historic Wargrave exhibition at Woodclyffe Hall, in the High Street.

The unique exhibition was part of the Wargrave Village Festival and aimed to show history fanatics how the quaint village has changed over the centuries.

Society secretary Peter Delaney said: "Many visitors stayed for some hours studying the pictures, documents and newspaper cuttings and around 200 people came to see the displays during the day."

Visitors saw rare photographs of Wargrave in the 1870s - showing the transformation of the High Street, as well as others portraying past village sports and wartime Wargrave.

One such photograph shows C Lunn's shop, which was recently discovered by one of the society members, Maureen Prince. It shows the shop in the High Street owned by Charlie Lunn, tobacconist and hairdresser.

Stood in the doorway, in 1910, is Alf Beckford, who was Charlie's hairdressing apprentice, and remained as the village barber for many years.

Another photograph on display depicted 19th century Wargrave - with many buildings still identifiable today - such as The Greyhound on the right hand side.

Mr Delaney claims one of the more 'notable' events in Wargrave's history was the fire that destroyed the church on June 1, 1914, and was "allegedly started by the Suffragettes". The accompanying photo was taken after the fire for the architect's report on the damage.

Mr Delaney said: "In addition to the photographs there was a display of various artefacts from our archive including milk bottles from a village dairy, handpainted china table place labels and a piece of recovered timber from the Wargrave church fire."

Send your memories of the town's history to alangley@berksmedia.co.uk