Archive

This week ‘s Treasure is a series of deeds and other papers relating to 55 Bridge St, Evesham, which are brought to us by Gillian Roberts, Archivist: When I first cast my eye over the entry for Accession 13610 ‘Zurich Financial Services deeds and other papers relating to Evesham’ I didn’t expect to get drawn into the...

We currently have four volunteers in Worcester helping us with the Manorial Documents project, and six in Hereford.  They’ve done some really great work for us so far, transcribing the contents of handwritten and typed manorial index slips onto an Excel spreadsheet.  Soon, some of them will also be helping compile summary histories, or what...

Following the announcement of savings to be made by the County Council, we have reviewed the opening hours for Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.   These hours have now been confirmed, and the opening hours are given below.  Please note that these do not affect access to microfilm resources, catalogues and indexes, the Local Studies and...

New deposits of archives come in to us in all shapes and sizes, this particular one arrived in a rusty hat tin. It had been found by a mechanic in a Malvern garage and passed on to us via a local historian. Initially the box appeared to contain about 200 letters and photos dating from...

We have experienced some problems with a limited number of lockers being available for use by visitors to the Archives as locker keys have been going missing. In order to ensure the facility continues to be made available for Archive users, starting from Monday 20th January the following changes will be made to our procedures:...

This week’s Treasure is a series of scrapbooks compiled by Vesta Tilley, which are brought to us by Adrian Gregson, County Archivist: The Music Hall star, Vesta Tilley, was born Matilda Alice Powles in Worcester in 1864. She went on to be a hugely successful star of the music and variety halls at the end...

Maps and plans are a great source for a study of a local area, house history and how people lived in the past. Worcestershire Archive Service hold Ordanace Survey maps, Tithe and Enclosure plans, Estate Maps, Public Health Maps which can all be used for comparing the lives of rich and poor, landowners and tenants....

Traditionally, the 21st December marked the feast of St Thomas the Apostle and was a day that saw the poor go round asking for money and food, including going door to door round the more well off in the parish. This was known as going ‘a Thomassing’ or going ‘a gooding’. People would seek money...

We are proud to announce that we are among the first six archive services in the UK to be awarded the prestigious Archive Service Accreditation, the new UK quality standard which recognises good performance in all areas of archive service delivery. This is great news and follows on from being approved as a Place of...

Many of the Christmas activities and traditions we follow today were made popular during the nineteenth century.  For the Victorians in particular Christmas was centred round the family with attendance at church, sitting down to Christmas dinner, gift giving, parlour games and visits to neighbours, friends and relatives all shared by the whole family.  For...