July edition of the Staffordshire Archives & Heritage Update

Staffordshire Archives and Heritage
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Distinctive Staffordshire Exhibition image

Object selection for the Distinctive Staffordshire exhibition is underway

Welcome 

Welcome to the July edition of the Staffordshire Archives and Heritage newsletter.

This month look out for the new Bawdy Courts project blog and the 'On Your Doorstep' exhibition at Cannock Library.

We are looking forward to launching the 'Distinctive Staffordshire' exhibition at the Staffordshire Record Office in August. The exhibition will feature some of the distinctive and often extraordinary stories, objects and documents from across our county. 

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Bawdy Courts Project

Lichfield ‘Bawdy’ Courts Project Blog
Earlier this year we reported the start of the Lichfield Bawdy Courts Project, a 2 year project to catalogue a major series of highly engaging and information-rich church court case papers from 1534-1900. The completed catalogue will identify case-types, names, occupations, places and key features of the cases. They reveal the voices of ordinary people, telling their stories in their own words with details which may be informative, amusing or even scurrilous, about the dispute and disputants – hence the contemporary nickname ‘bawdy courts’.

We are now pleased to announce the launch of the Lichfield Bawdy Courts blog which can be found at https://lichfieldbawdycourts.wordpress.com/. The blog will continue throughout the cataloguing project which runs to the beginning of 2021. Look out for tweets about the project together with scandalous stories and long lost turns of phrase and customs.

Volunteer groups at the History Access Point located at St Mary’s Church, Lichfield have already started transcribing some of the early documents. As well as blogging about stories from the court cases, we will also be looking at incidental information, interesting words and phrases together with aspects of community life that are revealed. If you have done any research using the consistory court papers and would like to contribute an item for the blog, please get it touch with jennifer.lewis@staffordshire.gov.uk or rebecca.jackson@staffordshire.gov.uk.


Staffordshire Record Office – New Opening Hours

The new opening hours at the Staffordshire Record Office have now taken effect. 
• Tuesday: 10.00 – 4.00 
• Wednesday: 10.00 – 4.00 
• Thursday: 10.00 – 4.00
• Friday: 10.00 – 4.00 
• Saturday: 9.00 – 1.00 (third Saturday in the month)


Mel and Howard planning to move some collection items in the museum store

Mel and Howard planning to move some collection items in the museum store

Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Working in the Museum Stores 

Since moving into the new collection stores at the end of 2018 work has continued to organise the collection and to update location records. The new store has given us an opportunity to think about how we use the collections and how different types of objects are grouped together so that they are easier to access.

All this takes a bit of planning and over the last few months the museum team have had several working days in the stores to relocate objects before they are added to the new inventory and their final locations allocated. Many objects are stored on open shelving without boxes, and thinking about how heavy they are, how fragile and how often we might need to bring them down from the top shelf are all things that need to be considered.  


Part of On YOUR Doorstep display at Cannock Library

On Your Doorstep at Cannock Library

The new touring exhibition 'On Your Doorstep' launched at Cannock Library on 15th July. The exhibition showcases objects and documents from the Cannock area, enabling local people to discover unique stories and memories on their own doorstep. 

Gill Heath, Cabinet Member for Communities at Staffordshire County Council said: “This is a fabulous opportunity for local people to see some of the Staffordshire’s amazing collections on display in the heart of Cannock. I hope that it will inspire people to find out more about the extraordinary history of our wonderful county.”

There will be an opportunity for visitors to get involved with different activities during the exhibition including a wordsmithing workshop with local poet Mal Dewhirst and a Digital Day where visitors can bring their own photographs along to be scanned and included on the Staffordshire Pasttrack website. Email cannock.library@staffordshire.gov.uk for details. 


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