Archive

Our Treasure today is a Bronze Age biconical urn from Clifton Quarry that has been chosen by Laura Templeton, Senior Illustrator. Here she tells us more about the find: Trenching at Clifton Quarry unearthed a Bronze Age ‘shouldered’ or ‘biconical’ urn. About a third of the pot seemed to be present, but was so crushed and fragile that...

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...

Our Treasures today are Mesolithic Flints uncovered close to the village of Broadway. Rob Hedge, Community Archaeology Officer, chose this week’s find and here he explains more about them: There’s a field in south-east Worcestershire, not far from the village of Broadway – a valley-floor settlement cast in honey-coloured Cotswold Limestone in the shadow of the hills,...

Following the announcement of savings to be made by the County Council, Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service is currently reviewing its opening hours. The new patterns of opening hours are currently under consultation with staff, but we expect to introduce them in January 2014. Further information will be made available as soon as we can,...

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...

Back in June we posted on the Wyre Forest stream-walking survey of the Dowles, Baveney and Lem Brooks within the Wyre Forest Landscape Partnership project area. The aim of this survey was to record archaeological evidence for structures, fords, relict stream channels or prehistoric burnt mounds. Volunteers have been busy since then and you can now...

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...

Our Treasure today is a floor tile that has been chosen by Laura Griffin, Senior Finds Archaeologist. Here she tells us more about the find: This small floor tile was found during the excavations ahead of the St Martin’s Quarter development in Worcester. It is just one of the 209 floor tiles which were found associated with a...

Today we bring you an item held at Worcester Cathedral Library, which has been carefully digitised by the Digitisation team at Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. This is a medieval medical text book compiled in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The first part contains three Latin translations of Arabic medical texts. They were translated by Gerard...

Today we bring you the second instalment of the Treasures from Worcestershire’s Past, which is an Ale-Tasters Oath from the Worcester City archive collection. “The Ale-Tasters Oath You shall be good and true to our Sovereign Lord King George and to his Heires and Successors Kings and Queens of Great Britain and to the Mayor...