Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
Chosen by the Guinea Pig Club (text by Sam Gallop, Chair of the Guinea Pig Club) The Archive of the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, which includes the patient case files and research records of Sir Archibald McIndoe and his teams, is of national and international importance. During the Second World War this hospital…
Continue reading ➞ Faces from the Fire: the biography of Sir Archibald McIndoe, 1962 (Lib 18911)
Chosen by Louise Goldsmith, Leader of West Sussex County Council One of my most favourite pleasures is visiting our Record Office. It never fails in providing interesting snippets of what was happening in the county at any one time and I naturally feel very proud of WS Record Office. As a local politician I…
Chosen by James Cooper, Director at Stansted House This map shows in artistic and graphic detail the lands and tenements belonging to the Stansted Estate, one of the foremost estates in Sussex in the late 18th century, then owned by Richard Barwell. The extent of the lands at the western end of the county is huge.…
Continue reading ➞ A survey and plans of the estate of Richard Barwell, 1785 (Add Mss 2158)
Chosen by Ine Van Dooren of Screen Archive South East (http://about.brighton.ac.uk/screenarchive/) In 1995 my life changed. I was appointed Moving Image Archivist for the South East Film & Video Archive, now called Screen Archive South East. I got some of my belongings in a car and moved from…
Continue reading ➞ ‘Shippam’s Guide to Opera’, 1955 (SASE 3266)
Chosen by Peter Wilkinson, former member of staff The records of the diocesan courts, particularly in the period from Queen Elizabeth’s reign to the start of the Civil War, give us a unique picture of local life in Sussex. On the one hand we see the bishop and his officials trying to keep a…
Chosen by Danae Tankard, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Chichester Giles Moore (1617-1679) was rector of Horsted Keynes from 1656 until 1679. During this time he kept a household account book (catalogued as the ‘Journal of Giles Moore’), providing a detailed record of his household expenditure. His book is organised by types of expenditure,…
Continue reading ➞ Household account book, 1656-1679 (Par 384/6/1)
Chosen by John Mills, Senior Archaeologist, West Sussex County Council Archival records provide a vital resource for archaeological research, as maps, plans, photographs, and many other records document the historical topography of the county. The Record Office also holds examples of the research and reports generated through archaeological study, and copies of the Sussex Archaeological Society's journal 'Sussex Archaeological Collections'. The…
Continue reading ➞ Sites of Archaeological Interest in West Sussex, mid 20th century (WDC/PL18/1)
Chosen by Timothy J McCann, former member of staff This is, at first sight, a printed list of ‘All Sorts of Medicines and Drugs, Prepared and Sold, on the most Reasonable Terms, by E. Axford, Practitioner in Physick, Surgery, and the Eyes, at Glauber’s Head, in the East Street, Chichester.’ It is interesting as a…
Chosen by Lady Emma Barnard This remarkable notebook was kept by my great-aunt Veronica, the daughter of Clive and Alicia Pearson, who lived at Parham. Veronica deposited it with West Sussex Record Office before her death in 1993; it is a moving record of wartime life on the estate, a vignette of an extraordinary time.…
Continue reading ➞ ‘Parham in the War’, 1940-1947 (Parham 1/4/10/3/3)
Chosen by Joyce Sleight, researcher Some years ago I attended a talk on the work of WSRO at Worthing Library given by a member of the Searchroom staff. In the informal chat that followed I mentioned that as a history teacher and librarian at Steyning Grammar School I had charge of some of the school archive. He…
Continue reading ➞ Steyning School Register, 1840-1876 (Acc 10206)
West Sussex Record Office 