A TAPE-RECORDING from Kelly and a ruined manor at Bere Ferrers are among the nominations being considered by a BBC magazine as items most deserving of preservation.

The BBC History Magazine has launched what has been called 'a modern Domesday Book for the new millennium' and is collecting pieces of local history to preserve and record.

'We wanted not just monuments and old buildings but anything of local noteworthiness that deserved recognition,' said BBC spokesman Mike Blakemore.

'We are keen to bring history to life.'

Two nominations on its recently announced short-list of the most worthy come from West Devon.

Roy Johns, now 88 and living in Whitchurch, recorded his memories during the 1990s for Talking Newspapers for the Blind.

'I thought it would be nice to put my memories on tape for future generations,' he said.

'Then I read about the BBC idea so I sent it off to them just for fun.'

On the hour-long tape he talks of his upbringing at Cleave Farm, Kelly, near Lifton, in the 1920s and 1930s.

His grandfather and father were tenant farmers, all the local farms being owned by the squire, the Rev Maitland Kelly.

The farm remained part of the Kelly estate up to World War Two, when Mr Johns' father bought it. Mr Johns sold it in the 1960s.

The memoire is highly anecdotal, according to Mike Blakemore, and spoken in a strong Devonshire accent.

It traces, among other things, the development of the local drama group, founded by the squire's daughter Mary Kelly.

The group began in a barn in 1919 and soon most of the village were persuaded to take part.

The village drama society is believed to have been one of the earliest such societies in the country.

The other local entry for the BBC archive is the medieval remains of Hawcombe Manor, near Bere Ferrers, once owned by the family of Sir Francis Drake, the explorer, and now believed to be very unusual if not unique.

The eight-acre site was inherited by Belinda O'Flynn of Bere Ferrers.

It belonged to her grandfather, a local butcher.

She has researched the place's history and believed it was worthy of recognition.

The magazine will decide in March which of the entries is the outstanding one and will help to preserve it.

All the other entries will be posted on the magazine's website at http://www.bbcworldwide.com/historymag.and">www.bbcworldwide.com/historymag.and it is hoped that the surrounding publicity will help to ensure their survival.