Rain Stops Play?

Now that Wimbledon is well under way, here's a sprinkling of Derbyshire tennis-themed items from our collections for those hoping the covers keep off the courts of SW19. Amongst many other tennis images on Picture the Past, I spotted this photo of the Goodall family of Ockbrook c.1896 (ref: DCER 001172). The chap at top left is …

A mystery solved…

We now know for sure what the mystery document is, that turned up unexpectedly at Buxton Pavilion Gardens. (See https://recordoffice.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/what-does-this-document-say-how-did-it-end-up-in-buxton/). It's the birth certificate of a very well-travelled missionary (http://en.messianicjudaismwiki.com/wiki/Jonas_Theodor_Meyer). Archivist Juliane Galle, based in Dublin (and who is, I should add, available for freelance work), responded to our request for an explanation of the …

Preservation Workshop

Last week the conservation team held a whole day Preservation Workshop for representatives of various heritage groups, teaching them how to clean and package their archive material.  The day was a big success and we received some lovely comments, like Both trainers were fantastic, presented very well and a pleasure to come to their training session. …

What does this document say? How did it end up in Buxton?

We are used to dealing with "mystery documents" in our outreach work - but that's where we invite people to examine a document and take a guess at the what/where/when/who/how of it. This one is a genuine mystery. The original is not in our collections - it was recently uncovered at the Pavilion Gardens in …

Have you seen the new Record Office?

For those of you who haven't seen the recently refurbished Record Office housing the county's local studies and archives collections, take a look at what you're missing at http://www.flickr.com/photos/derbyshirecc/

Bryan Donkin article – the tin can

Here is a fascinating article about Bryan Donkin and the invention of the tin can: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21689069 If you are interested in the journals mentioned, you might like to know that the reference number for the series is D5029/1.

New help to view that small old-fashioned print