Preservation goes hand in hand with conservation and, as part of the Archive Conservation team’s overview and collections care, a box survey was implemented in 1991. Still ongoing twenty years later, we are gradually surveying the contents of every box in the county archive. This enables us to monitor the condition of the archive, discard or replace unsuitable packaging, pins and staples, to make sure the contents are not packed incorrectly and to check that boxes are not over full.

Besides the important preservation and conservation aspect of the survey, it is also a wonderful opportunity to discover ‘lost’ treasures and to investigate collections unopened for many years, and in some cases perhaps decades. Some are yet to be fully catalogued.

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The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre has recently been officially recognised as providing one of the best archive services in the country. It was awarded a maximum four stars overall in an assessment by The National Archives, which acts as the government watchdog for archives. We are listed as seventh out of a total of 124 services in England and Wales.

See: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/our-services/self-assessment-results.htm for more details.

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Recently I gave a talk to Devizes Camera Club on the care and preservation of old photographs. While preparing this I realised how bad our centrally heated homes are for storage of this material compared with the old days of one two open fires and perhaps one electric fire switched on for going to bed! The required temperature and relative humidity varies according to the type of material but for general collections, as we have at the History Centre, we keep;

Black and white materials at 12°C and 35% relative humidity

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The registers and records of South Marston parish were recently deposited in the History Centre. Although the impact of this is somewhat lessened by the fact that we have had microfiche copies of the registers pre 1900 for over twenty years, nevertheless it is significant because it leaves only one Wiltshire parish, Ludgershall, outside the fold of the History Centre, quite an achievement in securing the permanent preservation of these vital records. Along with the registers, which go up to 1991, are records including a church rate book, 1847-1857, which is a useful source of names of parishioners at the end of the period of compulsory rating for Anglican churches.

 
A 'Defence of the Realm' register entry found in the Winterslow parish registers. It shows the Wiltshire returns of 1803.

If you are interested in parish registers, you might like to look at a new publication by our very own Steve Hobbs: “Gleanings from Wiltshire parish registers”, which forms volume 63 in the excellent series of Wiltshire Record Society publications, available for use in the History Centre. Steve has uncovered a wealth of information about life in Wiltshire which goes beyond the bare facts of baptisms, marriages and burials. For example, did you know that the 1695 assessments of tax on births, marriages and burials provided the first national census? Very few of the full assessments survive, but the register of Donhead St Mary includes the full asessment, and records the status of all parishioners and amount of tax due. The population of that parish in 1695 is stated as 814. To find out more, please 'read more'...

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Recently the rather unprepossessing 17^th century will of John Smith (P1/S/644), gained the distinction of becoming the 1000^th will to be conserved as part of the Heritage Lottery funded Wiltshire Wills Project.

The Will of John Smith

This project is digitising, conserving and preserving the 100,000 plus wills and probate papers (an estimated half a million individual documents) held at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre. To find out more, please 'read more'.

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