Archives

Bristol Green Capital 2015: Sources for Research

Bristol Archives holds archive sources related to many environmental and sustainability issues. Selected collections and papers are described here, although this is not a comprehensive list. More material is listed in our online catalogue. To search …

Desert Island Doc: Agatha Christie’s wartime wedding

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1914, Agatha Miller married Captain Archibald Christie in Bristol. Records of the ceremony, hastily arranged while Archie was on leave during the First World War, are now held at Bristol Archives.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Bristol collections

The city archives reflect many different aspects of Bristol’s history in the form of photographs, illustrations, maps and more.

The Vaughan Postcard Collection

A huge collection of postcards gathered by a local man, Roy Vaughan, is being researched and made public on the Know Your Place website by a wonderful team of Bristol Archives volunteers.

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.