Family historians are missing out!

Blog Administrator — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:14:53 +0100

We get a great many visitors passing through our doors, honing in on those invaluable parish registers, wills, non-conformist records etc. Some venture further, taking a look at what else the History Centre has to offer, but for many, little do they realise that they are missing out on some essential information – the contextual evidence that brings life to those ancestors they are searching so long and hard to find.

Why did Trowbridge bakers & confectioners go to Cardiff?

Blog Administrator — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:24:04 +0100

In his book ‘Snapshots of Welsh History without the boring bits’ and on his BBC Wales Blog, Phil Carradice writes about Cardiff entrepreneur, Solomon Andrews. He was a self made man who was, Phil writes, ‘Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire in 1835, Solomon Andrews came to Cardiff equipped with just a wooden tray to sling around his neck and a stack of trinkets and sweets to sell in the street’. By 1856 he was able to lease a s...

tweet, tweet away!

Blog Administrator — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:35:50 +0100

You can now follow us on twitter!

Later last year I had the good fortune to look at a tiny tumbledown cottage of c1815 at Cloatley End, Hankerton. You might wonder why I considered this a treat, as the front wall had fallen down after several years of being abandoned, and the roof had collapsed over it, necessitating a very cautious crawl into the interior with a hard hat on to see anything of the inside. The answer is simple: The occupants of this house were so poor that very li...

The Archvist’s friend and other Wiltshire Inventors

Blog Administrator — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:50:34 +0100

Readers of my earlier blogs will know I am often guided by those twin pillars of research: serendipity and curiosity. It was these two trusty old friends that led me Henry Charles “inky” Stephens (1841 – 1918). While tidying my desk as part of my New Year resolution I was left with just a few paper clips and two rulers on the work surface, which reminded me of a patent I had spotted in our indexes for “the parallel ruler&...

2000-year old warrior grave in North Bersted, Bognor Regis

Blog Administrator — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:14:11 +0100

Archaeologists from Thames Valley Archaeological Services (TVAS) unearthed the grave of a warrior in 2008, who died at around the time of the Roman conquest in AD43.

Excavations, led by Andy Taylor of TVAS, have been taking place in advance of a new housing develop...

Lacock Unlocked

Blog Administrator — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:29:59 +0100

In August 2011 Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for just over £500,000 to help acquire, catalogue and make available the archives of the Lacock Abbey estate, which have been on deposit with Wiltshire and Swindon Archives since 1991. The owner needs to sell the collection and the Archives are their preferred purchaser. This extensive archive, occupying 100 boxes on 35 metres of shelving, documents th...

Christmas Recipes

Blog Administrator — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:57:06 +0100

As this is the time of year that we are allowed to ‘eat, drink and be merry’, here we take a look at some culinary delights...!

Taken from theWiltshire Times,
13t...

World famous artists at Wiltshire Museums

Blog Administrator — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:21:59 +0100

I regularly mention the fantastic objects that you can find in Wiltshire’s museums but did you know that they also hold impressive art collections?

Museums of all sizes have paintings and prints depicting local scenes or created by artists who lived in the area. Not all of these will be household names, but they are still a valuable part of the story of life in Wiltshire which museums ...

Wiltshire’s ‘Dad’s Army’

Blog Administrator — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:54:08 +0100

Following the death in October of David Croft, co-creator of the much loved classic TV series Dad’s Army which was based on his own experiences as a member of the Home Guard, I was interested to find out how the Home Guard operated in Wiltshire.

Anthony Millard has wr...

The Past is a Different Country

Blog Administrator — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:33:44 +0100

A phrase that is often used as is ‘you can never go back’. Well recently I have been putting this to the test whilst working on a new book. It’s a in ‘Then and Now’ photographic series and so I’ve been out taking photographs of Trowbridge from the same viewpoint as those taken 60 to 120 years ago. I was born in the town but haven’t lived there for 20 years and I’m seeing the tow...

A Little Cottage in Ansty

Blog Administrator — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:37:14 +0100

Just recently I looked at a tiny house in the south of Wiltshire. Ansty has a population of about 125 but the head count is greatly expanded every May Day when Ansty holds its very popular celebration around the medieval duck pond, and near the Hospice or Commandery – a venerable 16th century building on land once belonging to the Knights Hospitallers.

A rather more humble buildin...

Avebury Manor Reborn

Blog Administrator — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:21:03 +0100

In November 2011, BBC TV will be broadcasting a series of four programmes based at Avebury Manor, a National Trust property in North Wiltshire set within the renowned, prehistoric stone circle of Avebury. The purpose of the collaboration between the National Trust and the BBC has been to restore parts of the interior of the Manor; features will include a Victorian kitchen, together with a kitchen garden of...

Conservation Workshops

Blog Administrator — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0100

The Archives Conservation team recently held a number of workshops for museum curators and volunteers on the care of paper and archive collections.

This was very much untried territory for the team, Paul Smith and Mervyn Grist, but was in response to requests for assistance from museums around the county. Three days (one in September...

WHO CARES? CHILDREN’S HOME RECORDS AT WILTSHIRE AND SWINDON ARCHIVES

Blog Administrator — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:33:06 +0100

As an archivist I am well used to helping people trace their family back into the past. The further back the better satisfied people usually are! I shall never forget the customer who told me they had been able to trace their ancestry back to the Stone Age. They believed that their surname sounded like the kind of noise a prehistoric person would make when banging two rocks together (No, I’m not making this up – I only wish I were!) ...

New technology helps us appreciate Wiltshire’s past

Blog Administrator — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Wiltshire Council’s Archaeology team are really pleased to be able to announce a major development and investment in the service which will help us and our customers appreciate and understand the County’s rich archaeological resource. We have recently purchased and installed a new Historic Environment Records (HER) Database System.
Whitesheet Hill on the HER system

Archaeology section at the WSHC After thousands attended the official ceremony last Sunday, during which Princess Anne presented Letters Patent on behalf of the Queen, we here at the History Centre would also like to pay tribute to the role the town has made on behalf of the repatriated military personnel and their families.

To do this I thought we could take an eclectic look back at some other moments in time wh...

Mystery museum objects

Blog Administrator — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:14:52 +0100

If you have been to any museums in Wiltshire you will know that they hold within them a great variety of objects telling the stories of the people and places of the county.

For this blog entry I thought I would give you a chance to test your knowledge and see if you can identify thes...

Weird, but maybe not quite so wonderful....

Blog Administrator — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:04:44 +0100

Some months ago an enquirer brought to my attention an unusual addition at the front of one of our parish registers. It was an 18th century cure for mad dog bites, along with a receipt for the bite of a mad dog, ‘Brought from the East-Indies by Sir George Cobb Bart.’, dated 9th July 1759. I found it fascinating and wondered what other weird and ‘not quite’ so wonderful cures and remedies were hiding away in our collection....

Sheriff versus nuns in Shrewton

Blog Administrator — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:06:44 +0100

The name Shrewton, the village set in the middle of Salisbury Plain, means the sheriff’s farm; the sheriff being Edward of Salisbury, Sheriff of Wiltshire who held the manor in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. But the present village of Shrewton is made up of seven medieval villages and hamlets, three of which were separate manors in 1...

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