Alumni Interview: Yorkshire’s YouTube Historian.

If you have an interest in local history, you may already have seen some of the popular YouTube videos created by ex-Notre Dame student Catherine Warr. Catherine went to Corpus Christi Catholic College, then studied with us for A-levels in Religious Studies, Classics, and English Literature, leaving Notre Dame in 2017. She set up her YouTube channel ‘Yorkshire’s Hidden History’ the following year, and now has more than 2,500 subscribers.

What made you decide to set up a history themed YouTube channel?
History has always been an important part of my life. When I was growing up, my parents took me to visit castles, churches, museums, historic houses… I believe we visited the vast majority of historical attractions in England. So, history was an obvious choice for my channel. 
Since I posted my first video in 2018, Yorkshire’s Hidden History has become the bigger Yorkshire history channel on YouTube, with more than 115,000 video views. It has fans all over the world: from the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia. 

What are you planning to do next?
To start with, the channel was just a hobby for me. Then I realised how much I enjoyed writing and talking about history, making videos about it. So far, my work has been featured on BBC Radio Leeds, East Leeds FM, and The Telegraph and Argus. Now I want to take it one step further, so I’m offering a bespoke documentary filmmaking service to small heritage sites and organisations. I’m also writing a book about Yorkshire folklore and traditions, which is due to be published in 2022.

Where can we see your work?
This is my YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4EhKVJccvPDs5dF8hxQ3JQ 
You can also follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/HiddenYorkshire 

Catherine’s hard work and resilience - not to mention her confident and individual presenting style - have already made her a great success. In fact, she’s been referred to as “Yorkshire's answer to Lucy Worsley - though not so posh”. We’d like to wish her the very best of luck with her developing career.