Latest news

  • 17th February 2018
1 Day Without Us – An Historical Perspective

  Saturday 17th February is 1 Day Without Us – a national event to celebrate migration, migrants and the contribution they make to society. Migration is the source of much discussion in the UK at present and, for some, invokes strong opinions. It is sometimes portrayed as a new phenomenon with a clear division between...

  • 9th February 2018
What’s In a Name: Paul Pry

We often see a name that sounds unusual and wonder what it means. One of our neighbours in the Butts is The Paul Pry and we have found that this name dates back nearly 200 years. The name Paul Pry derives from the play of the same name, which was written by John Poole and...

  • 6th February 2018
Suffrage 100

Having the right to vote is something we often take as read. But this was not always the case.  One significant step on the road to extending the right to vote took place one hundred years ago when the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave women over 30 and men over 21 the right...

  • 5th February 2018
Updated Absent Voter indexes now available online

This year we will celebrate the centenary of ‘The Representation of the People Act’ of February 1918. This Act extended the right to vote in Parliament to all men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30, dramatically altering the face of British democracy. This act of Parliament also allowed service...

  • 3rd February 2018
Foresters’ Forest: investigations continue

  What’s been happening since the Soudley Camp excavation took place in October? The Foresters’ Forest Project is a five year Heritage Lottery Fund programme exploring and protecting the Forest of Dean’s heritage, but what does it actually involve? Since October we have been working with local volunteers to begin the huge task of recording...

  • 31st January 2018
Find of the Month – January

  A medieval cooking pot – not the prettiest, but the source of fascinating information none the less. Our January Find of the Month gives us an insight into the lives and eating habits of ordinary medieval people, and how these changed over time. This particular pot fragment, or sherd, is unusually large and helpfully...

  • 26th January 2018
Shakespeare Documents’ recognised by UNESCO International Memory of the World!

  Documents revealing the story of Shakespeare’s personal, business and family life have been listed on UNESCO International Memory of the World.  The collection includes three documents  that we hold as part of the Diocese of Worcester collection. Of the hundreds of thousands of documents in our care, William Shakespeare’s marriage bond is probably one...

  • 25th January 2018
Celebrating Arthur Whinfield’s Slide Collection

  Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service (WAAS), in partnership with Worcester Diocesan Church House Trust (WDCHT) has been successful in its bid for £39,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to conserve, catalogue and share the Arthur Henry Whinfield Lantern Slide Collection. The remarkable photographic collection of this Worcestershire resident was donated by his widow,...