Our last day at New Street

A few snaps as we leave the New Street building to make a start on arranging the creche building, our temporary home for the coming months of the exciting new project to extend and refurbish the former Ernest Bailey Grammar School and our home for the last 20 or so years

Checking the tithe and enclosure records

Closed for business at New Street, the document issue desk is empty and closed up

The space left by the microfilms

The final items are removed from New Street

Silver lining: the view of Riber Castle and the surrounding area has improved

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Jack Junk’s Opinion of the French Language

To mark European Day of Languages (http://edl.ecml.at/), here is a cartoon by Derbyshire-raised cartoonist George M. Woodward, taken from the large collection of his works held here:

 

 The sailor on the left asks:

Why Jack! You was so long in a French Prison, I suppose you larnt to patter their Lingo a little?

The sailor on the right replies:

No Bob, I never some how fancied it, they call things out of their names so d–nably, – why would you believe it.  They call a Horse a Shovel and a Hat a Chopper!!

Uncoloured print. 348 x 245 mm.

Date: Aug 1805

Catalogue number: D5459/2/39

Alfreton Local History Open Day

Two pictures of participants in the Local History Open Day at Alfreton Library last week.  We had a fun day, and the event’s organisers reckon we had sixty visitors, which means it was time well spent as well.

 

Archives of change

We are still closed to the public, so here’s a flavour of what’s going on around the Derbyshire Record Office site at New Street.

Starting with something sad, but necessary: a large tree being taken down in the car park:

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Rusty Bacon

When the Bacon has been salted about a Fortnight putt it into a Box of the Size of the Bacon, covering the bottom of the Box [?]Hay, rap up each piece of Bacon with [?]Hay, + between every piece put a lare [layer] of [?]Hay, the Box must be kept shut, to prevent Rats or vermin getting into it.

More delights from the Strutt Library

For obvious reasons, afficionados of our county’s history know a thing or two about mining.  This book, part of the Strutt Library, is by Georgius Agricola (1494-1555), the “father of mineralogy”, and goes into the subject in some considerable detail.  It is illustrated too, as you can see from these pictures:

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The Strutt Library’s copy of “De Re Metallica” is not a first edition, however: it only dates back to 1657, when the text was published in Switzerland.

A Disney Production

Yesterday, we posted pictures of the Melland Library being readied for transport to an outstore.  Today is the turn of the Strutt Library, an extraordinary assemblage of books collected by the eponymous family of industrialists.  The library contains a great wealth of sources of interest for the study of Derbyshire history, and a great deal besides.  Take, for instance, this: John Disney’s 1729 description of the various legal codes dealing with unspeakable behaviour.

Alfreton Local History Open Day

For anyone interested in local history, Alfreton Library would be worth a visit this coming Thursday.  Two of us are going from Derbyshire Record Office, and we will be bringing a selection of archive material with us.  For full details of the event, click here: http://www.artsderbyshire.org.uk/whats_on/details.asp?EventID=1410102

Moving time

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It’s all go here, yet eerily quiet at the same time.  These pictures show the Melland Library being set out for checking and cleaning, before getting sent away to an outstore – to return when our searchroom is nicely refurbished.  For more about the move, see www.derbyshire.gov.uk/recordoffice, and click “expansion”