You don’t need to book your space in our searchroom. But if you do, we’ll have your first two documents waiting for you when you arrive. The searchroom is open on Wednesdays to Fridays, 9.30am – 4.30pm and the first two Saturdays of each month (the s…
We’re thrilled to announce that M Shed, Bristol Archives and Bristol Museum & Art Gallery will soon be re-opening. We can’t wait to see you! M Shed and Bristol Archives will reopen on Tuesday 8 September. Bristol Museum & Art Gal…
by Philippa Lewis, Project Cataloguer Since October 2018 I’ve been working as an audio cataloguer for the Unlocking our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project team based at Bristol Archives. This has been my first experience of working solely with audio mat…
by David Brookfield, Audio Digitisation Engineer I’m part of the team digitising audio recordings for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project at Bristol Archives. This has given me the chance to hear stories from countless people on a wide ran…
By the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection team The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum was an independent museum in Temple Approach, Bristol, which was open to the public between 2002 and 2008. In 2012, following the museum’s permanen…
by Pat Ellingham, Archives volunteer Our volunteer, Pat Ellingham, found this story of the young Penelope Chetwode (later Lady Betjeman) in the photograph albums of Geoffrey Kellie, part of the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection. There’s a defin…
by Jo Vietze, former Senior Archivist The third series of the BBC’s A House Through Time begins next week. Following examination of houses in Newcastle and Liverpool, this year David Olusoga and his team trace the history of a house in Bristol ̵…
by Cara Powell, Unlocking Our Sound Heritage volunteer Cara Powell is completing her BA in History at the University of the West of England. The Unlocking Our Sound Heritage team were lucky enough to have her as a volunteer in 2019-20. Cara worked on a nu…
by David, Sam and Philippa, from the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project The first collection held by Bristol Archives that Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) digitised was from Arnolfini, Bristol’s contemporary arts centre. 40 years of artists’ ta…
On Friday 8 May, we mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe. On Tuesday 8 May 1945, celebrations took place across the country and Bristol was no exception. Two different audio-visual archives from Brist…