There are thousands, if not millions of stories, photographs and newspaper clippings documenting the social history ofthe towns, villages and cities in the UK. They might well be in your house or workplace, or gathering dust in a garage. Some have already been published on social networks, but are not searchable or aren't available to those not on social media.

Our Town Story is a new, not-for-profit project here to host a unique archive of that material, available for research, to make connections or just browse! Unlike Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, we make no presumptions to the right to reproduce, sell, licence or otherwise redistribute your photographs, we just want to share the nation's local history.

If you've got images you'd like to share, then firstly you need to check whether we already have your town or village listed. Do that by clicking the 'Search' link at the top of any page. If we do, click on it in the search results to go straight to your town's profile. If not, please click here to request the creation of a new town profile. We will work through them as quickly as we can, and will notify you when it's done. We'll try and do it quicker, but it could take up to 24 hours.

All the best,

Tim