Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist Following on from last year's blog post about what Christmas was like at Chichester Workhouse, this year we will be exploring how the festive period was celebrated at Graylingwell Hospital specifically during World War One. Once again, we have turned to a newspaper article to give us a glimpse into…
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist PH 15815 - A chilly wintery scene of the cathedral from Westgate fields, c. 1900 The usual images that come to mind when thinking of workhouses will resemble that of Oliver Twist, and rightly so. The conditions for those who relied upon the unions would have been implacable, degrading, and cruel…
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist In the 1940s two sisters, Amy and Nellie Scaddan, evacuated to the safety of the Petworth countryside from Portsmouth. Although it was more commonplace for children to be evacuated, these sisters were most likely in their 40s during this time and also wanted to take refuge somewhere that would not…
Continue reading ➞ A Wartime Christmas in the Petworth Countryside
By Jennifer Mason, Assistant County Archivist (Collections Management) It’s definitely feeling wintry in West Sussex as we head towards Christmas. Today’s blog looks back at past West Sussex winters and celebrates a variety of cold weather activities. View of snow on the Downs at Fittleworth, 1947 (John Smith PH 13/156) We’ve had quite a mild…
West Sussex Record Office 