Blog / Archives

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Explore Your Archive: Bristol in old postcards

We want to encourage people to discover historic Bristol through old postcards on the Know Your Place website. Would you like to use the postcards to tell your own stories – or could you volunteer for us?

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Desert Island Doc: A very Bristolian bride

At Bristol Archives, we’re often asked for evidence of the Bristol dialect amongst the archives, but this usually proves elusive.

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Making the archives greener

At Bristol Archives we care for the city’s archives – over ten miles of shelving containing documents dating back as far as the 12th century – by carefully managing the storage conditions in our strongrooms.

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Desert Island Doc: Not in my back yard!

Our staff and invited guests introduce their favourite documents from the Bristol Archives collections. For this edition, Malcolm Boyns, Archivist has selected a petition to alter the place for public executions of criminals, 1773.

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Desert Island Doc: ‘Visited with the plague’

Our staff and invited guests introduce their favourite documents from the Bristol Archives collections. For this edition, Richard Burley, former Archives Manager, has selected the burial register for the parish of St Nicholas, 1634-1654.

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Desert Island Doc: A new school for Cary Grant

Our staff and invited guests introduce their favourite documents from the Bristol Archives collections. For this edition, Max Parkin, Archives Assistant has chosen an admission register for North Street Wesleyan School, 1910.

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

The John Horwood book

One of the most curious items in the Bristol Archives collection is one of the UK’s few surviving examples of a book bound in human skin. In 1821 John Horwood, an 18 year old from Hanham, near Bristol, was the first person publicly executed at Bri…

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Desert Island Doc: Mapping the bombardment of Bristol

Our staff and invited guests introduce their favourite documents from the Bristol Archives collections. For this edition, Matt Coles, Archives Assistant has chosen a plan of bombs dropped, ranging from 50 kilos to 1,000 kilos, during the 1939-45 war.

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

Desert Island Doc: The mermaid and the monk

Our staff and invited guests introduce their favourite documents from the Bristol Archives collections. For this edition, Julian Warren, Archivist has chosen the surviving portions of a medieval temporale.