Archive

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service has been commissioned by English Heritage to undertake a project aimed at appraising the impact of flooding and flood mitigation on the county’s distinctive and rich historic environment and landscape character. Worcestershire is particularly vulnerable to riverine and rainwater flooding with large areas of the countryside, including numerous historic towns...

The first copy of the much anticipated children’s history of Worcester, “Stories of Worcester”, arrived at The Hive yesterday to the delight of staff and authors alike. Pat Hughes (front left), co-author of ‘Stories of Worcester’ and WAAS staff Claire Haslam (r-l) and Julia Pincott (r-r) who have assisted with the process of publishing the...

This week’s Treasures, brought to you by Archaeologist Rob Hedge, were uncovered during a recent community excavation called ‘DigMinster’. The series of finds uncovered during the course of this project provide an insight into a largely forgotten chapter of Kidderminster’s industrial heritage: Last year, our archaeologists led a month-long community excavation at St Mary’s Church...

During the process of sorting and arranging the Lyttelton collection, one of the boxes was found to contain a locked volume.  There was nothing on it to indicate what it was and there was no key anywhere in the boxes.  It was referred to as a ‘locked volume’ in the original list which accompanied the...

This week’s Treasure has been chosen by Jack Hanson, Historic Landscape Officer. He has decided to highlight an area west of the village of Alvechurch, Bromsgrove as representative of the many locally distinctive, significant, and valued historic landscapes across the county which remain largely under-represented and unprotected. Alvechurch Marina, along the Birmingham to Worcester Canal  While many historic...

This week’s Treasure is a large series of docquets, which form a part of the Croome collection – the archives of the Earls of Coventry: As part of the official papers of Sir Thomas Coventry (1578-1640) 1st Baron of Allesborough, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England held in the Croome collection are a...

This week’s Treasure has been chosen by Angela Downton, Senior Archives Assistant. Whilst working on one of our existing collection she discovered an unusual example of a seal attached to one of the documents. This is just one example of the hundreds of fascinating seals that can be found amongst our collections at The Hive. Here, Angie tells us more...

Do you wish to feed back comments about the archive service at The Hive? Now is your opportunity to contribute to the development of our future service provision… From Monday, 9th June to Saturday, 21st June 2014 we will be asking for your thoughts on the Worcestershire Archive Service, which is based at The Hive. The results...

To help support teachers who will be teaching Prehistory as part of the new national Curriculum we will be running a twilight session for teachers with Museums Worcestershire on 4th June. The new history curriculum will include British prehistory for Key Stage 2 for the first time, and we know from conversations that many teachers...

This week’s Treasure has been chosen by Tom Vaughan, Project Manager for Worcestershire Archaeology. Tom has chosen to highlight a series of finds which were uncovered as a result of archaeological investigations in Kempsey. Here, Tom tells us more about the rich history of this area: In 2011 Worcestershire Archaeology undertook a series of investigations...