Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Summer Parker, volunteer, and Alice Millard, archivist MGM 2/3, prospectuses, 1884-1891 In late 2024, the archive of the Marine and General Mutual Life Assurance Society was catalogued and made accessible to researchers. This project was made possible by a grant awarded by Lloyds Register Foundation. Known as MGM, the company was founded in London…
Continue reading ➞ Life and Death at Sea: Marine and General Mutual
By Louise Conway, Archives Assistant PH 32684/25 Over collection care fortnight 2025, the team added over 2000 new records to our collection database, many of these relating to the Uppark collection, in turn uncovering even more stories around the infamous estate. Situated in South Harting, West Sussex, Uppark, as it is recognised today, was built…
By Nick Corbo-Stewart, Archivist and Volunteer Coordinator In this series of blogs looking at new collections at West Sussex Record Office (WSRO), I will continue to guide you, the reader, through the variety of work undertaken by the volunteers. Through a culmination of sorting, listing, ordering, cataloguing and packaging, their completed collections are now open…
By Matthew Jones, Assistant County Archivist I was lucky enough to live in Midhurst for several years so I’m often drawn to old photographs of the town amongst the vast collections here at West Sussex Record Office. PH 6627 - Red Lion Street in 1944 with A A Holford (boot repairs), now Comestibles, and H…
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist Across West Sussex there are many historic pubs that are the cornerstone to village life and community. In this brief blog post we will be focusing in on and exploring two of the oldest in the county: The George and Dragon in Houghton. This pub dates to the 13th century,…
By Mia Curtis-Mays, Archives Assistant CPS 1780/2 The beginning of the Corn Exchange The Corn Exchange in East Street, Chichester, was erected in 1832 to be a marketplace for local farmers, corn merchants and millers. Due to the lack of interest in the corn market by the corporation, farmers and corn merchants took matters into…
Continue reading ➞ Chichester’s Cinematic History at The Corn Exchange
By Lois Bodie, Archives Assistant You can learn a great deal about a place and its history by focusing on one particular point and charting its change. For me, I have grown increasingly interested in the history of St Martin’s Street in Chichester, only a minute or two by foot from the medieval Market Cross.…
Continue reading ➞ In the Heart of Chichester: A Glimpse into the History of St Martin’s Street
By Mia Curtis-Mays, Archives Assistant I am currently part of a digitisation project scanning the glass negatives from the Chichester Photographic Services collection (CPS). Through wanting to find out more about the collection I was working on, I discovered that the founder of Chichester Photographic Services has a legacy in the realms of film and…
Continue reading ➞ Harry Guermonprez: Founder of Chichester Photographic Services Ltd
By Louise Conway, Archives Assistant In this first part of a two part blog series we will be exploring the history of Shoreham's Bungalow Town. To begin we will look at Shoreham pre Bungalow Town and the moving onto the early days of the site, the bungalows themselves and what life was like. This blog…
By Tim Hudson, guest speaker What is the largest building in Chichester after the cathedral? Most residents will know County Hall, tucked away behind West Street. A public right of way runs past it; and whenever a news item about the County Council appears in the press it is likely to be accompanied by a…
Continue reading ➞ Tuesday Talk – County Hall and its architect
West Sussex Record Office 