Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
Chosen by Margaret Clark, volunteer Milton Mount College, a girls’ boarding school, was founded in 1871 in Gravesend for the daughters of Congregational ministers. Later it was opened to all girls aged 8-18. In 1920 the school moved to Worth Park, a large Victorian mansion on the outskirts of Crawley, previously owned by the Montefiore…
Continue reading ➞ Milton Mount College production of ‘The Boy with a Cart’, 1955 (MMC 1/9/7/87)
Chosen by David Barling, Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services, West Sussex County Council This fascinating minute book records the concerns and activities of local residents at a period that includes the First World War and its aftermath. It shows how the Parish Council dealt with a wide variety of issues and it is remarkable…
Continue reading ➞ Steyning Parish Council minute book, 1908-1927 (Par 183/49/1)
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 Sheila Rhodes, volunteer Edward Heron-Allen was a remarkable man. Born in London in 1861, Heron-Allen's interests were many and varied; a qualified solicitor, he was also an expert in violin making and cheirosophy (the art of reading a person's character through the formation of their hands and fingers), a published author of early science-fiction stories and…
Chosen by Nick Corbo-Stewart, former member of staff (text by Katherine Slay) As part of Chichester Festival Theatre’s highly successful Pass It On! project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Record Office has been working in partnership with the Theatre for the last three years to bring together and explore the theatre’s extensive archives.…
Continue reading ➞ Model of Chichester Festival Theatre, 1967 (CFT/1/1/1/1/4)
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)
West Sussex Record Office 