AN EXCITING project which will lift the lid on Pembroke’s history has received a £70,000 funding boost.

Pembroke 21C Community Association has been awarded the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) money for A Journey Through Time in Pembroke.

The project is a development of the successful Pembroke Story heritage project at the Tabernacle United Reform Church (URC) and it will link Pembroke Commons with the Main Street through the town walls, the garden and the church.

A garden with different planted areas telling the story of Pembroke through the ages will be recreated in the burgage plot behind the Tabernacle URC with an area for quiet contemplation.

The garden is one of Pembroke’s medieval burgage plots. It has a limestone cave and within the surrounding town walls there is a 17th century lime kiln.

The Tabernacle has plans to create an open, modern community church while conserving the Victorian nature of the building.

The Pembroke Town Walls Trust, the project’s third partner, will use the walls surrounding the garden as a pilot project to test methods for refurbishing the walls throughout the town.

All three aspects of the project will be interpreted inside the Church as well as in the garden.

Pembroke 21C trustees’ chair Gareth Jones said: “We are thrilled to have received the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund for this important project. We are confident it will encourage new volunteers from throughout the community to be interested in their local heritage as well as engaging school children and bringing more visitors into the town.”

Explaining the importance of the project, Jennifer Steward, Head of the HLF in Wales said: “Looking after and sharing local heritage is an excellent way of keeping stories and traditions alive for future generations.

“This project will provide creative and exciting opportunities which will ensure that this heritage is safeguarded and remembered.”