Wonderful words

I first came across the word wapentake about 12 years ago when I started working at the record office - I understood that it described an ancient jurisdiction, similar in meaning (though not necessarily in geography) to the district and borough jurisdictions we have today.  I also discovered that the term hundred was also an area delineating …

Building History – Getting Started

An introductory guide to the sources available for researching property in Derbyshire There are a large number of different sources available for researching the history of Derbyshire buildings, but the survival and availability of sources varies significantly between different places. Most records do not relate to specific properties and it is very rare to be …

Treasure 50: Walter’s gift of land in 1115

The very last of our 50 Treasures (D77/1/23/58) is believed to be the very first, chronologically: the oldest document we hold. Dating from approximately 1100-1115, during the reign of Henry I, this deed records the gift of a virgate of land by Walter of Ridware to Robert Mellor. The land in question was in Seale, …

Discovering Ilkeston

Yesterday morning I visited Ilkeston Library to deliver a new workshop  introducing people to the various sources available for researching the history a Derbyshire building. It was a quiet session, with only two in attendance - though one had travelled all the way from Aston on Trent which took me quite by surprise! With the …

To keep or not to keep – that is the question

One of the key professional responsibilities of the archivist is to decide which records to select for permanent preservation and which to dispose of. In fact, you could argue that the role of the archivist is not one of preservation but of “destruction” (though I’m not sure we would quite argue that). Here at Derbyshire Record …