Did you help create Britain's first digital time capsule?

Help us reunite contributors with their BBC Domesday Project entries. 

Do you remember carrying a blue Domesday clipboard? Please complete our survey, we'd love to hear your story! 

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/s5HEvKBkV4

Before the internet, Wikipedia or Google Maps, thousands of 1980s UK schoolchildren created a digital snapshot of everyday life in Britain.  

Forty years later, those children are now in their 50s, and many have never seen what they made.  

Armed with clipboards, cameras and notebooks, children were sent out into their towns and villages to record local life for the BBC Domesday Project - one of the world's most ambitious digital heritage projects and the first searchable multimedia map of Britain.  

Created to mark the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book of 1086, the project used cutting-edge technology to capture a snapshot of Britain in the mid-1980s. Instead of recording information onto parchment, contributors' work was stored on laserdiscs and explored using a specially designed computer system. Users could search maps, view photographs, watch video clips and read local information on screen.  

At a time when most people had never used a computer, this was a remarkable glimpse of the future. 

Unfortunately, the technology was expensive and quickly became obsolete. As a result, many of the schoolchildren who contributed to the project have never seen their work displayed on a functioning Domesday System. 

The Centre for Computing History wants to change that. 

We preserve two of the UK's few fully working BBC Domesday Systems and, as the project approaches its 40th anniversary, we are inviting contributors to reconnect with the articles, photographs, surveys and local histories they helped create in 1985 and 1986. 

We are also collecting memories of taking part in the project, developing a new exhibition and planning a special anniversary celebration on 19 September 2026. 

We would love to hear from: 

• People who contributed information  

• Teachers who organised local projects 

• Anyone who still has photographs, notes, worksheets or BBC Domesday materials 

• People who can locate their original contributions 

Complete our survey via the link at the top and help us reconnect people with their piece of digital history. 

Date : 20-07-2026