Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Imogen Russell, Archives Assistant PH 30099, 30084, 30138,30103 & 30085 Every few years or so, we get an enquiry about the "Men of Bosham". It has always intrigued me and I've wondered why it is so important to the history of Bosham and Chichester. According to several sources, including Maurice Hall’s book on the…
Continue reading ➞ The Men of Bosham – who are they and what do they want
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Supervisor Figure 1 - Kevis 1-D45 - Miss Daintrey's Rat As with previous blog posts an animal has invariably had an intriguing impact on the subject matter, and this blog post is no exception. When looking at the catalogue description for Par 65/9/1 – the churchwardens accounts for West Dean, just north…
Continue reading ➞ The Wonderful World of Churchwardens Accounts
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Supervisor Penguins and Glass EP I/98 Aldingbourne Faculty, 12th May 1954 A little curiosity we have in Aldingbourne Church is a stained glass window located in the Lady Chapel. This is not your typical stained glass window depicting saints, sinners and heroes, but something far more intriguing: a submarine and –…
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Supervisor https://youtu.be/L_dGs0xVM9o Battle of Trafalgar in the Archives: West Sussex Snippets by Imogen Russell AM 760/1/126: Letter from Lady Hamilton written some time after the Battle of the Nile, 1798. ‘Lady H hopes to have the happiness and honour of your company’ Lady Hamilton wrote some time after the Battle of…
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Assistant Alice, one of our Social media fairies, posted images of this document at the beginning of lockdown. Click here for the original post on Facebook. I managed to gain copies before beginning to work from home, allowing me to write about the subject of this week's blog post - The…
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Assistant. Wednesday 1st April 2020. This is a bit like the assignment you’d get, as a child, when your teacher would ask you to write about What You Did On Your Holiday. Well, we’ve been asked by our Social Media officers - Abbie and Alice - to write about what we…
Continue reading ➞ A Day In the Life… of a Searchroom Assistant
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Assistant Bognor Observer, Wednesday 11th October 1933. This year marks my tenth anniversary of working at the Record Office and for this blog I thought I'd review one of my most memorable cataloguing projects. I could have chosen AM 760 – letters of Admiral Sir George Murray, the subject of previous…
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Assistant Though it is more the norm to write blogs on individual documents, I thought I’d talk about a series of records listed under our Episcopal collection, known as faculties. Faculties are permissions from the Diocese for parish churches to alter the fabric of their buildings. As the Diocesan Record Office,…
Like most people I like baking and cooking, so when Lauren (our Searchroom Archivist) set the challenge to try some historic recipes from the archives, I jumped at the chance to have a go. One thing I noticed when going through the recipe books held at the Record Office was that over the centuries, there…
From the 18th – 21st of October this Year, the Chichester Festival Theatre car park at Northgate will be closed for Chichester’s annual Sloe Fair, representing a tradition that has lasted for over 900 years It is the longest-running, and last surviving of five ancient fairs in the city, as the right to hold the Sloe…
Continue reading ➞ ‘All the fun of the Fair’: A history of Chichester’s oldest surviving fair
West Sussex Record Office 