Archive

Drinking, fighting and behaving badly with the neighbours’ wives – this was no local layabout accused of causing trouble around the village of Alvechurch in 1642, it was their vicar. ‘That the said William Hollington is usual[ly] a frequenter of alehouses where he spends much time both day and night as well on the Sabbath...

Today marks the start of the 2018 Explore Your Archive launch week (17th-25th November). Explore Your Archive is a campaign delivered by the Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland) that showcases the best of archives and archive services in the UK and Ireland.  Over the coming days we will seek to highlight some of the stories,...

  The cold and ice of the last glacial reached its worst about 21,000 years ago. Since then the earth has become warmer, allowing humans to return to Britain 15,000 years ago across Doggerland, the area now covered by the North Sea. But the impact of the Ice Age remains all around us. Today, about...

  A new two year project focussing on the market gardening heritage in the Vale of Evesham has just been awarded £68,700 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and £5000 from Historic England. The project is being run by Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service (WAAS), in partnership with Cleeve Prior Heritage Trust, Vale Landscape Heritage...

  Few areas of science generate as much controversy and debate as human evolution. The teapot sherd discovered during an excavation at Kilbury Drive, Worcester, shows a snippet of a scene in which apes dressed in human clothes are brawling in a tavern. It is an example of a popular Victorian ‘meme’: satirising the idea...

After several days negotiation a ceasefire was agreed between the Allies and the Germans at 5am on 11 November 1918 to come into effect at 11.00 that day. British Commanders were told ‘Hostilities will cease at 1100 hours today, 11th November.  Troops will stand fast on the line reached at that hour …’  German troops...

  There isn’t one Ice Age: there have been at least five. Some were millions of years ago and one even billions of years ago. The most recent, the one we all call ‘The Ice Age’, is known geologically as the Quaternary. It lasted from two and a half million years ago until about 12,000...

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, at The Hive, is hosting the English launch of the 2018 Explore Your Archive campaign on Saturday, 24th November. Join us for a day of FREE activities to discover the wonders held within our collections.     Explore Your Archive is a year-long campaign which aims to celebrate the unique...

This is the seventeenth in a series of blog posts celebrating the life and work of timber-frame building specialists FWB ‘Freddie’ and Mary Charles. Funded by Historic England, the ‘Charles Archive’ project aims to digitise and make more accessible the Charles collection. If you want to explore the High Street yourself we have downloadable trail...

  Keep your eyes open! You don’t need to be an archaeologist to discover fascinating finds. This month’s star artefact was found by a volunteer on our community excavation in the Forest of Dean. During October, we ran a dig at Ruardean Castle – a nationally important and protected monument – as part of the...