A south Hatfield school has been busy creating a heritage trail for South Hatfield. The De Havilland School received Lottery Heritage funding earlier this year and work on the trail is nearing completion.

The project started in April under the guidance of former Deputy Headteacher, Janet Packer. Pupils have been heavily involved with the project, under the guidance of Stride design, a web-design company who has already been involved in similar projects in Cambridge.

Mrs Packer, who retired from De Havilland in August but still heads the project, explained that the team were surprised at the lack of documented South Hatfield history, “There didn’t seem to be anything about South Hatfield in particular and we knew that there was plenty of history about the area.”

During the Jubilee celebrations, pupils from DeHavilland recorded the memories of South Hatfield residents. They have also explored the area with David Irving, an architect involved in the building of the area and discovered features that existed prior to the development of South Hatfield.

Mrs Packer also made her own discoveries, “I didn’t know that the farmhouse still existed, yet it is still there, behind the Jim McDonald Centre. We also have a watering trough within the school grounds.” South Hatfield was built on farmland during the creation of the new town.

Mrs Packer added, “It’s been a great experience for the pupils of De Havilland School and we’ve greatly appreciated the input from many South Hatfield residents.”

The heritage trail project team have documented their progress on the web (http://southhatfieldcommunity.wordpress.com/) and the full web-based trail will be available online in about a month.