Introduction
The Norfolk Record Office collects and preserves records of historical
significance relating to the County of Norfolk and makes them
available to a wide range of people for consultation and study.
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Accommodation
Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Stage 1 approval was
given in July to the joint Norfolk Record Office and East Anglian Film
Archive bid for funding towards a new building at County Hall. Since
then both partners have been working with the HLF to complete the full
Stage 2 submission by July 2000. David Bernstein, of Levitt Bernstein
Associates, was appointed architectural adviser to the project in
November and has worked with the County Council’s architectural
design team. The RIBA Stage D architectural drawings and a joint
working group report on IT were sent to the HLF in February.
The newly converted outstore accommodation received
temporary recognition from the Public Record Office as a place of
deposit for public records and from the Historical Manuscripts
Commission for manorial and tithe records.
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Accessions
244 deposits, gifts or purchases of documents were
made during the year. Among them was a Broadland swan roll, c.1500,
consisting of five detached parchment membranes with 99 outline
drawings of swans' heads, showing marks of ownership and owners’
names, purchased for £34,870. The purchase price was met from grant
aid from the V and A Purchase Grant Fund, the Friends of the National
Libraries, Norwich Town Close Estate Charity, the proceeds of a public
appeal, and with the assistance of the Norfolk Record Society. The
appeal also resulted in the deposit of a copy of a related early
Norfolk swan roll made by the Revd Edward Wymer, vicar of Ingham, in
1837.
The largest accessions were of public records. They
included records from King’s Lynn Conservancy Board, mainly 1898-c.1990,
with some inherited documents from 1855, and from Norwich Prison,
1875-1984. The latter are complemented by microfilm copies, made by
the Record Office, of records of Norfolk County Gaol held by Norwich
Castle Museum, 1733-1886. Records of Keswick Hall College of
Education, 1921-1985, came from the University of East Anglia.
Norwich Labour Party deposited records covering
1924-1998. Other records from societies included the Nolan Golden
collection of papers relating to bell-ringing in Norfolk and the
eastern counties, 18th-20th centuries, from the Norwich Diocesan
Association of Ringers and thirty scrapbooks compiled by T. H. Bryant
in the course of writing his Norfolk Churches from the Norfolk
and Norwich Archaeological Society. Scrapbooks also comprise much of
the Checkley collection of albums,
postcards, photographs and papers relating to Holt compiled over many
years by Archibald Checkley.
Deeds and estate papers received included
additional Preston of Beeston estate and family records, 18th-20th
centuries, and a group of deeds and papers relating to estates in
Tilney, Terrington and Wiggenhall, 1587-1837, with one Gaywood deed,
1520. An agreement relating to fishing rights in the millpond and
streams at Lyng, undated but before 1417 and a letter from Oliver Le
Neve to his brother Peter Le Neve, the herald and antiquary, 1692,
stand out among the single items acquired. Personal papers deposited
included correspondence, 1880s-1920s, and some photographs of Dr P. H.
Emerson (1856-1936), photographer of East Anglia and author, and
diaries of W. J. S. Field, farmer of Twyford and later of Norwich,
1932-1990.
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Cataloguing and
stocktaking
A catalogue of the Mills of Hilborough estate and
family archive, 13th-20th centuries, has been completed. The
collection included title deeds from the 13th century, manorial
records from 1290, and estate and family papers from the 18th century.
A new contents list has been compiled of the Norwich City records,
relating principally to records of the pre-1835 unreformed
Corporation. A summary list of Norfolk manors and manorial records has
been compiled as part of the Record Office’s contribution to the
Norfolk phase of the compilation of the English Manorial Documents
Register database, in partnership with the Historical Manuscripts
Commission. New cataloguing has been undertaken using CALM 2000 Plus
for Archives since February and work has begun on converting backlog
lists.
Stocktaking during two weeks’ planned closure
between 22 November and 3 December, was carried out on the parish and
free church records, records of St Andrew’s Hospital and Norfolk and
Norwich Hospital, and most of the business records, comprising an
estimated 20% of the Record Office’s holdings.
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Public Services
13,303 visits were made to the searchroom compared
with 14,057 in 1998-99 (the number of opening days was reduced because
of the two weeks’ closure for stocktaking) and there were 311 visits
to the Borough Archives at King’s Lynn. 34,450 original documents
were produced compared with 35,060 in 1998-99. 9,792 postal, telephone
and E-mail enquiries were answered, compared with 9,371 in 1998-9.
Two additional collections of requests for
documents to be produced from the strongrooms were introduced
experimentally for a three-month period when the Record Office
reopened after stocktaking in December and, following favourable
public reaction, made permanent in March. Also in response to public
demand, an air-conditioning unit was installed in the searchroom in
the summer of 1999. The searchroom layout was changed to allow two
additional microfilm readers to be added. New book cushions, to the
Record Office’s design, have been provided in the manuscript
section.
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Research
Family history was, as usual, the major interest,
with local history the next largest category. Other research topics
included medieval entertainment around the Wash; medieval Hunstanton;
St Walstan of Bawburgh; the Greyfriars’ tower at King’s Lynn;
Margery Kempe; Carrow Abbey; the social and economic history of late
medieval Norwich; Ely Cathedral; stone used in the town wall of King’s
Lynn; church silver; crime in early modern England; memory and civic
identity in the 16th century; 16th-century Yarmouth; the weavers of
Colegate, Norwich; Blickling estate and the Lothians; Humphrey
Prideaux, Dean of Norwich Cathedral, 1702-1725; 19th-century women
evangelicals; King’s Lynn’s water supply; the history of brewing;
Norfolk wherries; the port of Wells; child abuse and care homes; Royal
Navy vessels in the port of Lynn before and after D-Day in 1944;
Benjamin Britten; Norwich Airport; and the east coast floods.
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Conservation and
Preservation
Volumes which have been repaired in-house, 20 in
all, include early 16th-century household accounts from the Le Strange
collection, manor court records for Shipdham, 1580-1710, and for Wood
Norton and Stibbard, 1840-1923, and a St Andrew’s Hospital Master’s
journal, 1843-1849.
3,735 papers were treated, including water-damaged
correspondence of Viscount Yarmouth, 1676-1679, and badly decayed
letters of Oliver Locker Lampson, and 43 parchments. 23 maps conserved
included three coloured estate maps of Hoveton St Peter, Marshland and
Stradsett which were featured in Record Office exhibitions during the
year.
A total of, 7,843 papers, 24 parchments, 6 maps
and 71 volumes have passed through Conservation for treatment prior to
microfilming, mainly as part of a new phase of the Mormon microfilming
programme carried out in 1999.
57 water-damaged volumes from the Bradfer Lawrence
collection, Costessey manor court books and business records of the
Gurneys, the Norwich textile manufacturers, have been treated and
rebound by a local contractor. 262 water-damaged School Board minute
books and Great Yarmouth electoral registers were rebound by a large
conservation and bookbinding firm.
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