Somerset Archives Closed Period 2025
Archivist Graeme Edwards gives a behind-the-scenes tour of the archival projects undertaken during this year’s closed period.
Our annual Closed Period provides an opportunity to undertake larger projects that we would not have the time or space to tackle during our normal opening hours. All of the projects help improve the services we offer. As well as continuing to answer a range of enquiries, here is a summary of some of the work we have undertaken during this year’s Closed Period (20-31 January 2025).
We’ve been working on a large deposit of Woodspring Magistrates’ Court registers (ref. D/PS/wsm). All 46 boxes of registers, covering the years 1993-1997, have been sorted, catalogued and re-located in our strongrooms. These can be found on the online catalogue, although please bear in mind that access is restricted in accordance with Data Protection legislation, see the guide.
Not every record created by an organisation is selected for permanent preservation amongst the Somerset Archives – otherwise we’d soon run out of space in our strongrooms! Over the past two weeks we have appraised over 40 boxes of records of the former Somerset County Council and Taunton Deane Borough Council. Those that fall under our collecting policy have been selected for permanent preservation as archives. The majority of these will be catalogued as part of our Somerset County Council listing project.
We have also appraised and catalogued Building Control Plans for Taunton Borough Council and Taunton Deane Borough Council covering the 1950s-1980s, selecting those relating to new builds, significant alterations to existing properties and large developments.
The Somerset Studies Library contains more than 20,000 printed volumes, as well as newspapers, research notes, articles and ephemera, and 2025 will see a complete audit of those resources with every item needing to be seen and updated on our catalogue. The project will continue for the next 6 months and will end with a report of any missing stock so they can be either found, replaced or removed from the catalogue. The first section of this has been started during closed period, with more than a third of the Reserve Collections audited in the fortnight.
In the first week of Closed Period two members of staff attended a careers event at The Castle School in Taunton, taking part in mock interviews with Year 10 students. The ‘candidates’ were very impressive! We have also been preparing for upcoming sessions and events, including Primary and Secondary Resources, as well as Coffee Time Talks on Love in the Archives and the Archives of the Forests!
Work to conserve our pre-1850s railway plans is underway. The one featured here is the proposed Bath and Weymouth Great Western Railway, 1836 (ref. Q/RUP/128), showing the main line from Wincanton to Weymouth and is just under 4 metres long. The plans are being carefully cleaned and any tears will be sympathetically repaired.
That’s not all we’ve been up to though, oh no!
- The Research and Copying Request Service has continued to work through a wide range of requests, including the research and copying of estate and mental health records.
- We’ve carried out a stock check of our microfiche and microfilm records, locating misplaced items.
- Cataloguing work has continued on the Wessex Water Archive Collection. The complete archive is extensive, comprising over 60 boxes of material dating back to the early nineteenth century.
- One of our team has been helping to make salt-dough bones and teeth for use by our Learning Team. They are used in schools to make stone age necklaces!
- The Closed Period has given us an opportunity to sort through our old exhibition display material, selecting material that can be re-used for learning and outreach.
- We’ve catalogued a large transfer of marriage registers, deposited following changes to the Marriage Act in 2020.
- Last but not least, we’ve been sticking hundreds of new labels to archive boxes in our Strongrooms.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks but order has now been restored to the searchroom and we’re ready to welcome our visitors back. Click here for our opening times and booking system.