Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist Maps are one of the most useful resources for family, local, and house historians. They can tell you about the age, changing shape and structure of properties, as well as shifting land usage and ownership. They are also worth looking at in more depth as records in of themselves. Moving…
Continue reading ➞ Mapping West Sussex – Part Two: County Orienteering and Plotting Estates
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist Maps are one of the most useful resources for family, local, and house historians. They can tell you about the age, changing shape and structure of properties, as well as shifting land usage and ownership. They are also worth looking at in more depth as records in of themselves. Moving…
Continue reading ➞ Mapping West Sussex – Part One: Military Maps and Tithe Tiffs
We have reached the final week (for now...) of Sussex Unwrapped! It is the turn of Chichester this week, and we thought it would be a great idea to run through the centuries to sum up the history of Chichester as a a market town and cathedral city. Let's see what has changed shall we?…
Continue reading ➞ West Sussex Unwrapped Week 10: Chichester
You may know Shippam's as the purveyors of meat and fish pastes which are sold in supermarkets to this day. They carry a strong nostalgic connection to those who grew up enjoying their products. The company has always had very close ties with Chichester, and had brilliant marketing to help them dominate the market. This…
John Smith PH 10/56 - View of South Harting from Petersfield Road It's difficult to look at old photos of the countryside and not get nostalgic. Even for city dwellers, images like blackberry picking are only associated with happy, warm days in the open air. Country life has certainly changed over the past century, so…
Continue reading ➞ West Sussex Unwrapped Week 7: Country Life
Though 2020 has not really been the year for street gatherings, if there's one thing people like to do - it's have a celebration! Royal Jubilees and Coronations have been some of the easiest excuses for communities to gather together and have a bit of a party. Taking a look through the centuries, we're able…
Continue reading ➞ West Sussex Unwrapped Week 5: Jubilees and Coronations
To match up with Screen Archive South East's Day in Horsted Keynes Women’s Institute film, this week we are taking a look at what WSRO hold from up and down the county regarding WIs. There's a lot of places to visit, and a lot of memories to recall and people to see, so let's get…
Continue reading ➞ West Sussex Unwrapped Week 3: Food, Certificates and Scrapbooking of the WI
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist Happy Pi Day! As always with these sorts of events, I was looking for something innocuous to post for this fun little hashtag holiday, and ended up tumbling down the rabbit hole of something only marginally related to what I set out to do. Instead of a photo or two…
Continue reading ➞ The Pie Powder Court of Chichester: Dusty feet and quick justice
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…
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?
West Sussex Record Office 