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Mike Robinson
Chairman Broughton Millennium Committee
On this special day I would like to welcome
Councillor's Harker and Hakewell, Broughton Parish Councillor's,
past and current members of the Broughton Millennium Committee and the most important
people here today, the residents of Broughton, our village.
And I am sure you will all join me in a special welcome to the future of Broughton, the
children who have joined us from our school.
We have come together today to celebrate the completion of a project which started with
the formation of the Millennium Committee 5 years ago in 1997, although the idea of
permanent memorial in the shape of a village sign did not come about until 1998, although
we never envisaged it would be 2002 before it came to fruition. But I am pleased to say
that it has. There have been times when I thought it would not happen and we must take
this opportunity to thank all those who worked so hard to raise funds and those who
contributed money to help make this day.
I know that many villages have erected signs to commemorate the Millennium, what is
special about this project is that it was conceived, designed, built and paid for entirely
within our community, by residents of our village. The original design was by Steve Boffy,
who unfortunately is not here today as he has now moved away. It was paid for by donations
from you and our Parish Council and Steve Boffy's design was skilfully translated from
paper to reality and erected by our own village Blacksmiths, Tim and David James and their
highly skilled team.
When you see the sign unveiled I am certain you will appreciate how well it depicts the
history and traditions of Broughton and the skills that went into bringing the Broughton
Millennium Sign to us today and for future generations to enjoy.
I would now like to ask Councillor Jim Harker to say a few Words and then invite
Katherine, one of our school children, to complete the ceremony by pulling the cord and
unveiling the Broughton Millennium Sign |
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Councillor Jim
Harker
Well thank you very much Mike, I'm just going to say a few words of
congratulation really, to everybody that's has been involved in this really hard work and
very successful project as Mike Robinson's team both the Millennium Committee which
I know has been working though two, nearly three years, I think, Mike, from planning this
lot of frustrations beaten a lot of bureaucracy and came out on top, well done Mike.
And of course the parish council itself has been very active particularly in the financial
support and making sure that the provision of the site is the right place and that sort of
thing so it really is a great job. I also as well like to pay tribute, I think to the
blacksmiths James Brothers, I mean a famous Broughton family who's fame is spreading wider
there is some very important jobs that the James Brothers are doing country wide now and I
think that this is a real tribute to the skill of them and the chaps that work for them.
I thought that I would just have a quick look in doomsday book before I came out this
morning, because here we are celebrating the Millennium and I thought I would check out
what Broughton was like a thousand years ago, and I have just got a few notes that you may
like to know. It was called Braughton then, it was a village of twenty six houses
with 321 inhabitants, nine villains and five cottages. I'm not sure about the villains any
more I think there's a few more then nine about.
It had fifteen acres of meadow, five acres of arable and it was valued at twenty shillings
which was quite a lot of money in those days anyway, so it was a thriving community a
thousand years ago and here we are a thousand years later commemorating that and looking
forward to the next millennium. And I guess that I look over to the church there
which in the book says its Norman but I'll bet there's a bit of Saxon working in there as
well so you know its a real ongoing community and its a great credit to everybody that
you've seen fit to record that today so congratulations everybody.
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