THOUSANDS of people have been viewing a new archive of photographs taken from the Journal's old collection of glass negatives taken during the 1950s.

They've been logging on to the catalogue of digitised images created by the North Devon Athenaeum.

"It's been head-spinning," said librarian Naomi Ayre.

"We expected interest but not quite this much."

She said the catalogue on the Athenaeum's website has had more than 7,000 hits since it opened last week.

"We had 2,500 hits on the first day," said Naomi.

"One woman came across a photo of her husband she'd never seen before and we've had an inquiry from the Fairground Heritage Trail about photos setting up fairs in the early days."

Members of the Athenaeum and history groups gathered with guests to see a slide show of the digitised pictures.

Margaret Reed, chairman of the Athenaeum, welcomed visitors to the event, which coincided with the Founder's Day Celebration, held annually to toast Athenaeum founder, William Rock.

Among the guests was Journal gardening writer, Graham Andrews, who rescued some of the glass negatives from a skip.