ANYONE connected with Croome Court, its park, people or the farms and villages belonging to the Croome Estate is needed to take part in a special event.

The Friends of Croome Park have received £15,000 from the Local Heritage Initiative to create an oral and also a photographic archive of Croome, based on previously undocumented personal memories.

Residents are invited to take a trip Down Memory Lane at Croome Park on Sunday, March 26, between 11am and 4pm.

Members of the Friends will be on hand to talk to local people and record their stories, to build up a picture of life at Croome in the 20th Century which can be preserved for the future.

Visitors are also invited to take along photographs of people and scenes at Croome, which could be copied and added to the archive.

"We know that Croome was a way of life for a great many people," said project member Eileen Clement.

"It has to become a way of life for volunteers on this project, too.

"We are looking forward to hearing everyone's stories.

"All memories, however small, are of interest to us, but especially the 1920s, 1930s and the period in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the Hare Krishna Movement leased Croome Court."

The National Trust is offering a complimentary ticket for another visit to the park to anyone who takes part in Sunday's event.

Recordings and scanned photographs will be held by the Friends of Croome for public access.

They will be used in talks and also in leaflets and a booklet will be produced in March 2007.

"This is a really important project because it will involve the community in recording their very local memories," said Camille Newton of the Local Heritage Initiative, a national grant and advice scheme run by the Countryside Agency on behalf of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Croome Park was acquired by the National Trust in 1996 and its 670 acres of parkland are being restored.

Thousands of trees and shrubs have been replanted, the lake and river have been dredged, and buildings have been restored.