A Welsh brass band has announced that it has received funding for a unique new heritage project.

Parc and Dare Band from the Rhondda Valley, one of the country's oldest bands, has been given a grant of almost £50,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to celebrate its place in Wales's musical heritage.

Over 110 years old, the brass band plans to launch a new book, DVD and multimedia exhibition to celebrate the its history and open its work up to a wider audience.

The Parc & Dare Band Legacy project will use photographs, accounts, contributions from local schools and community organisations, historical information and other archival material to tell the musical and social heritage of the brass band.

A new book by Avril Evans and Elaine Hawkins, both from Rhondda, launched last year and forms the centrepiece of the project.

Life Divine: The History of the Parc & Dare Band charts the development of the band from its beginnings as the Cwmparc Drum & Fife Temperance Band to its patronage of the Ocean Coal Company and its links with the mining community in Rhondda.