Latest news

More and more people are looking for online name indexes to help them with their family history, or with house or local history. On our website we have several indexes with names which have created by our wonderful volunteers.   Our 12 miles of archives contain numerous names, which may be people you are interested...

Whilst you are spending time at home, why not investigate your house? What can you find out about it and people who may have lived there before? Can you draw a picture of it? We know some children have been looking at their house, either as part of work set by school or as a...

Yes, document cleaning by washing them! People that visit The Hive, and in particular the behind the scenes tours, are impressed with the conservation of the documents and books. They are often amazed that this is because we wash the documents. Why do we do this?  How is washing a document ok? The main image...

We have fantastic volunteers, contributing the equivalent of around 450 days a year. They help us is so many ways, and we try to share the many varied volunteering roles they do on our blog each year, and we appreciate all they do. However we know they get a lot out of volunteering too, which...

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk. Within the archives are stories of this event by Worcestershire people, recorded as part of our WWII oral history project carried our 20-25 years ago. The operation, codenamed ‘Operation Dynamo’ which took place between 27 May and 4 June 1940, is...

Thanks to those of you who had a go at Almond Jumballs and sent in your photos. Rebecca’s are pictured below, which we were told were very almondy and tasty. Historical Shaped Biscuits Within the Slice of the Past recipe book, containing recipes taken from the archives, is one for Gingerbread. Gingerbread biscuits have been...

A common question we get asked is ‘Do you have any maps?’. The answer is a resounding yes – tens of thousands of them covering 400 years. How can you find out what maps we have? Most of the maps from the archives are listed on an online searchable index which you can search at...

A chance find brought to the attention of one of our team helping a neighbour that adds to a bold story of Worcester. In April our archaeologists were all working at home, so our Find of the Month is a little different. A Corn Exchange Free entry token.  Described against their example by the British...

An unusual find from the Worcester Porcelain factory where you would normally think of richly decorated find pottery such as in January’s find of the month, but it tells an interesting WWII story of how a small component made a big difference in our lives. Our archaeologists were working on a site by The Royal...

Allotments are an everyday sight, but their story is worth a second look. Having expanded during the two world wars, their tale reflects the history of the county. As part of the 20th Century Heritage Project we dug deeper into the history of allotments, their development and current status.   Over the past two years...