Thousands of old photographs of Aireborough are being shared with people around the globe thanks to a scheme to archive them online.

More than 4,000 photographs have been digitally stored by Aireborough Historical Society over the past 18 months.

Images on glass slides dating back to 1900 and earlier are also being put online – each one being photographed and then transferred to disc ready to archive.

The group is also working its way through maps and documents going back hundreds of years, including transfer deeds by Jonathan Peate giving land and Yeadon Park to the people of Aireborough.

The on-going project is under the control of the society’s archivist Carlo Harrison who works with a small team of volunteers.

The painstaking work requires all photographs, maps and documents to be researched and authenticated before being digitally archived.

Carlo said the society’s facebook page had 1,470 followers and was constantly growing. Between 3,500 and 5,000 individuals read its postings on facebook every week, and its website has more than 40,000 hits a month.

Carlo said: “We have followers in every corner of the globe and active participants sharing memories and comments from USA, Canada, Australia, Europe, New Zealand, UK, South Africa, Philippines, Singapore and on and on.

“Some of the people making contact are second generation natives of their own country but on research, find for instance, that their great grandparents came from Yeadon, Guiseley or Rawdon.

“The archives held in Yeadon Town Hall are extensive, by using the media available through the internet we are able to share these treasures with people all over the world, which is important, otherwise they are a record of times gone past in boxes stored away and no one sees them.”

A calendar produced by the society using photographs from its archives shown alongside the same scenes today has proved spectacularly popular. All 500 copies of the calendar have sold out in just over two weeks.