Our society was built on the work of local historian Reginald Pavey. He was born and grew up in Charmouth but after studying at Oxford University he was a teacher at Clifton College, Bristol, then retired back to Charmouth in the 1950s.
Another local historian Peter Press formed the society as The Pavey Group in 1999, who used to meet in The Pavey Room in The Elms to do further research. The name was later changed to the Charmouth Local History Society. Since 1999 the Society has held regular talks and meetings on various topics within the village and published our regular magazine ‘The Village Echo’ which contains articles on a wide variety of subjects.
Recently, changes in the Parish Council Offices at The Elms have necessitated a move to a smaller room. Fortunately, we were able to obtain a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. This has enabled us to re-establish the society as a virtual ‘museum’ with an improved website which we shall use to show and tell the stories of our collection of objects, photographs and documents.