A local church is giving away free books to schools.

City Life Church has produced a book of photographs aimed at capturing the history of its community.

The 'Swaythling Snapshot' project was started in 2013 to show how the area has changed over time - and to see what the future holds for the area.

With inspiration coming from key events in Swaythling's history, the project is a collaboration with other churches in the area and is a mixture of historical research, photographs and interviews with residents.

Resource leader at the Burgess Road church Dan Pooley said: "Swaythling is an area of the city that has seen much change over the years, with history connected to the ill-fated sailing of the Titanic as well as the manufacture of the Spitfire that proved to play a key part in winning WWII.

"City Life Church began life in Swaythling and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2016.

"The church is an active part of the community and runs a variety of local projects and services in the area, including the popular family stay and play events ‘Precious Gems’ and ‘Jump Around’, as well as city wide projects, ‘CLEAR’ which provides practical support for refugees and asylum seekers, and ‘The Gate’ which supports women involved in the sex industry in Southampton.

He added: "The church loves Swaythling and those who make the area what it is. The Swaythling Snapshot photobook project was one way in which we could be part of celebrating our community and our history, at the same time as providing a valuable resource to local schools.”

Organisers of the project say that longside creating a piece of local history and capturing the voice of Swaythling, part of the original idea for the project was for schools to use the resource as part of the local history and human geography aspects of the national curriculum.

Now with help from a local logistics team, multiple copies of the book are being delivered for free to over 50 schools within Southampton.

Dan said: “We are very grateful for the support delivering the books and helping us bring the project to a successful completion.

"The photobook and website contain plenty of primary sources of information to help pupils engage with local history, human geography and more. Our hope is that the book will be a valuable resource to schools and pupils for many years to come.”