The Clements Hall Local History Group's most recent book - Nunnery Lane and Clementhorpe: Exploring old shops and pubs in York - has been named Best Community Publication of 2021 in the national CILIP Alan Ball Local History Awards.

Group members - all volunteers - carried on researching the book throughout the first year of lockdown.

They even used a pub, the Trafalgar Bay in Nunnery Lane, as a ‘local history hub’. They held beer garden sessions there when pandemic restrictions allowed to share memories, and launched the book there in September last year.

Anne Houson, the history group's chair, said, they were delighted by the latest award. "It is a worthy reward for the hard work carried out by our researchers!" she said.

The book is the most recent in a series of books focussing on the history of local shops and businesses, and the people who ran them. And it racked up the group's fourth major award or commendation in four years.

Last year the history group won the ‘Community Engagement’ category in the Community Archives and Heritage Group (CAHG) awards. The judges commented on how well the group continued to maintain community links through lockdown.

In 2018, meanwhile, the group was highly commended in the CILIP Alan Ball Award Best Digital category, for website work on their World War 1 project. Also that year they won the Community Archives and Heritage Group Award for Excellence for their digital work.

Nunnery Lane and Clementhorpe: Exploring old shops and pubs in York is on sale price £8 locally at Pextons, Frankie and Johnny’s Cookshop, Fred’s Bakery, The Trafalgar Bay and The Winning Post, and in town at Waterstones.