Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Jo McConville, Heritage Project Manager: Transatlantic Ties Followers of this blog and WSRO news will almost certainly be familiar with the story of the Sussex Declaration (if not, click this link to see our previous blog posts on this great record), the rare contemporary copy of the American Declaration of Independence housed at the…
By Tim Hudson (guest blogger) What types of historic documents do architectural historians use? Continuing with our guest written series, the once Editor of the Sussex Victoria County History and co author of the updated Pevsner guide to West Sussex, Tim Hudson, will be exploring the types of records used when researching built heritage. Each…
Continue reading ➞ Historic records and architectural histories: Sussex Sales Particulars
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist PD 1159 - The Salvation Army Riots in Worthing No this isn’t a skeleton Halloween post! In fact, if anything, it is more suited to Dry January! For context, during our 2019 December Closed Fortnight, I gave myself the task of going through our Prints and Drawings Collections, cataloguing and…
By Tim Hudson (guest blogger) What types of historic documents do architectural historians use? Continuing with our guest written series, the once Editor of the Sussex Victoria County History and co author of the updated Pevsner guide to West Sussex, Tim Hudson, will be exploring the types of records used when researching built heritage. Each…
By Katherine Slay, Archives Assistant In our latest blog post, Katherine Slay explains more about our on-going project to catalogue the tens of thousands of employee cards of the Southern England Railway company. These are gradually being made available whilst being indexed at the same time. Family historians will be able to find out more…
Continue reading ➞ The Railway Card Project: ‘B’ surname cards
By Alice Millard, Research Assistant Written accounts of serpent-like creatures, often referred to as dragons, appear throughout British history. They’re comparable to today’s sensationalist news stories about spooky big cat sightings. Both are creatures who normally cannot be accurately described - yet people have attempted to convince others of the existence of monsters for millennia.…
Continue reading ➞ The monstrous serpent of St Leonard’s Forest
By Tim Hudson (guest blogger) What types of historic documents do architectural historians use? Continuing with our guest written series, the once Editor of the Sussex Victoria County History and co author of the updated Pevsner guide to West Sussex, Tim Hudson, will be exploring the types of records used when researching built heritage. Each…
Continue reading ➞ Historic records and architectural histories: drawings and models
Rationing began in the early stages of the Second World War, but it's impact was immediate and long lasting. What restrictions were there on meat, petrol, sugar, fabric, and - most important of all - tea? And how long did it last?
By Alison Merriman, Archivist to the West Sussex Federation of Women's Institutes To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the West Sussex Federation of Women's Institutes, Alison delves deeper into the origins of the WI - an organisation that has been present in West Sussex ever since its arrival in England in 1914. To illustrate her…
Continue reading ➞ Looking back at the Women’s Institute in West Sussex
By Alice Millard, Research Assistant You may not have considered that the sleepy South coast of West Sussex had to confront fascist activity head on during the decade prior to the Second World War. Yet, we recently stumbled across some records held in the archive which tell a very different story, and prompted further exploration…
West Sussex Record Office 