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Haverhill school students have helped to create an online museum of the town's longest-established company, as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations.

The Herbert Group completes 250 years of trading this year and to help celebrate the event, a group of year nine pupils from the Samuel Ward Arts and Technology College helped to create the online museum using rare exhibits from the company’s archive.

The project was called Down Our Weigh and was generously supported by a grant from the Young Roots programme of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The group worked to create a unique collection that will be of interest to schools around the country, and the site was launched last week.

“The young people from Samuel Ward have learnt such a lot about the company,” says project coordinator Mike Levy of Cambridge-based Keystage Company.

“We have been meeting each Wednesday after school and the students have been exploring but a small selection of the huge archive of materials held by the company.

"They were particularly thrilled to handle an original pair of hand scales from the 18th century, to explore the names on a commemorative tankard from 1889 and to enjoy going through very old catalogues and photographs.

"They are working with me and Jason Fitzpatrick of Pure Energy Multimedia Ltd on choosing which exhibits to photograph and put on to the specially designed website.”

One old photograph, for example, shows the first works outing – to a pub in Chigwell in the late 1860s. Employees would have gone by horse-pulled omnibus and spent a very pleasant day having lunch and a few beers.

The students learned about the time Herberts moved from London to Haverhill in 1968. They interviewed former employees and made several visits to the company to explore the large archive of old scales, documents, photographs and artefacts.

Richard Herbert, chairman of the Herbert Group, said: “It is very satisfying to know that the young people take such an interest in our history, which indeed is really part of their own.”