Village Voices will see stories, memories and reminiscences recorded on audio and two of the first villages to take part will be Woodford Halse and Bugbrooke.

Northamptonshire Action For Communities in Rural England (Acre) secured £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the project, which will cover two years and see oral histories and memories recorded by local community members using equipment provided by the scheme.

A spokesman for Northamptonshire Acre said: “We’ve got the funding to cover the entire county.

“Village Voices is an oral history project looking at how life in rural Northamptonshire has changed since the Second World War.

“We’re focusing in on different industries and support industries.

“In Woodford Halse we’ve got the big impact that the closure of the railways had and they’ve got a very active history society.”

Eventually the audio gathered by the project’s volunteers will be available on a CD and possibly online.

Julie Williams, a member of Woodford Halse History Society, said: “There’s two of us involved in Woodford Halse and we’ve got to go on the training course before we can start.

“It seems that Northamptonshire Acre chose us because of our photographic archive and how much we have achieved with that in such a short time.

“I should say the Village Voices will fit together with our work in the archive.”

It is hoped that the project will be expanded over time to cover more rural communities.