A GRANT of £8,500 is going to the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust to set up a digital photographic archive of the canal.

The award is one of four in Wiltshire as part of the Lottery's Awards for All programme.

The Trust, which was formed to protect, enhance and promote the waterway that stretches from Reading to Bristol, wants to use the money to start a digital photographic archive called Picture the Past.

Warren Berry, Kennet and Avon Canal Trust Museum Curator, said: "We are unique in having an enormous photographic archive of the canal, with some 3-4,000 photographs recording its history.

"We get so many requests for copies by researchers and for use in postcards, magazines and displays, that the originals are likely to get damaged.

"With the grant, we can instead buy computer equipment and digitise the archive to ensure the collection is, like the newly-restored canal, preserved for the enjoyment of future generations."

Other grants in the area include one for £10,000 to Yatton Keynell Recreation Association, who will be able to provide a Trim Trail in the recreation grounds for the local community.

The Kennet Valley Area of the Military Vehicle Trust, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, will use a £10,000 award to hold a WWII historic convoy and reenactment event over the May Bank Holiday weekend.

Based in Ramsbury, the event will observe the role the area played in Operation Market Garden and D-Day with two themed, historic vehicle convoy days, US Airborne Day and British Airborne and 30 Corps Day, culminating in a public day on Bank Holiday Monday. Each of the convoys will visit local sites that saw US and UK troop activity and will end with 1940s dances, fashion show, and a wartime searchlight display.

Awards for All is the small grants scheme administered by the Big Lottery Fund on behalf of Lottery good cause funders, Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England.