Hagley Historical and Field Society

At our May meeting Paul Hudson spoke on the Work of the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.  The focus of his presentation was the new Hive building in Worcester with its staggering twelve miles of shelving containing documents relating to 900 years of Worcestershire history.  Central to the work of the Hive is the Historic Environment Record, a searchable database recording all the known archaeological sites, historic buildings and landscapes (around 26,000 of them!) in the County.

 Paul had brought examples of documents relating to Hagley and fascinated us with some of the nineteenth century census records, extracts from parish registers, goings-on in the Quarter Sessions and trade directories (a kind of Yellow Pages of the time).  We also saw a few local examples from the 80,000 photographs in the Worcestershire Photographic Survey and the thousands more in the archives.  Members of the Society have worked with County Archive staff in the past and hope to be involved in the cataloguing of the Lyttelton papers later in the year.  We are following up Paul’s riveting presentation with a visit to the Hive in June and will enjoy a ‘behind the scenes’ look.