Mantle Community Arts was founded as a voluntary organisation by a group of local people in North West Leicestershire. The organisation is initially focused on collecting oral history recordings to preserve the memories of local people at a time of great upheaval and change that saw the end of the mining industry in Leicestershire. The recordings were made available on audio cassettes.
Mantle also began to publish books on local history, such as Getting the Coal and Marking Time – Voices from Bardon.