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  • 7th September 2023
Photographing Worcestershire

Photographs offer a visual record of the history of the past. Seeing what people, places and communities once looked like can help us trace changes overtime. They can even reveal the history of the photographic medium itself. At Worcestershire Archive Service, we hold 80,020 photos as part of the Worcestershire Photographic Survey – a collection...

  • 5th July 2023
Queen Elizabeth II visits Redditch, 5th July 1983.

Forty years ago, on the 5th of July 1983 the Redditch Development Corporation invited Queen Elizabeth II to visit Redditch to open the Kingfisher Shopping Centre and the Forge Mill National Needle Museum. She would meet civic leaders and local representatives as she walked through the town centre and ate at the Town Hall, before...

  • 27th June 2023
If only artefacts could talk…

Our Roots in Time project, based around 2022’s community excavation at Evesham’s New Farm Nature Reserve, has got us thinking about human nature. Prehistory is often thought of as being primitive – a time when life was just about survival and people were perhaps less intelligent than today. But archaeology shows us that this idea...

  • 15th May 2023
In solidarity: a photographic history of nursing in Worcestershire

Many of us have benefited at some point in time from medical care at the hands of nurses. While some deliver direct patient care in clinics, health centres, hospital wards and operating theatres, others provide support at home or in schools. Whether part of the National Health Service (NHS) or working for alternative organisations, all...

  • 26th April 2023
The Granville Bantock Diaries: 1928 – 1946

A recently catalogued collection of 37 handwritten diaries belonging to the composer Sir Granville Ransome Bantock shed insight into his life and music. Those written between 1928 and 1946 are the focus of this blog. Past posts cover the years 1911 – 1919 and 1920 – 1927.   In the later part of his life,...

  • 20th April 2023
The Granville Bantock Diaries: 1920 – 1927

A recently catalogued collection of 37 handwritten diaries belonging to the composer Sir Granville Ransome Bantock shed insight into his life and music. Those written between 1920 and 1927 are the focus of this blog. Past and future posts cover the years 1911 – 1919 and 1928 – 1946.   Musically, the 1920s represent Granville...

  • 11th April 2023
The Granville Bantock Diaries: 1911 – 1919

A recently catalogued collection of 37 handwritten diaries belonging to the composer Sir Granville Ransome Bantock, shed insight into his life and music. Those written between 1911 and 1919 are the focus of this blog. Future posts will cover the years 1920 – 1927 and 1928 – 1946, respectively. Though they might at first appear...

  • 6th April 2023
Helena Bantock, a Woman in Her Own Right

The pages of history are filled with the achievements of men and less so women. In no period is this more evident than the late 18th and early 19th centuries, where gender roles were sharply defined and the Victorian notion of seperate spheres for men and women prevailed. Born in Pancras, London on 21st November...

  • 31st March 2023
Badsey’s Big Dig

In May 2022, 19 test pits were excavated across Badsey village as part of the Small Pits, Big Ideas project.  Badsey is known to be in an area where there is evidence of early activity, but what could we find out about the medieval village? What is this all about? This community excavation was part of...