August 2017 Project Update

We thought it would be a good time for another quick update on what we have been up to, and what we have planned in the next few months.

Happily, our annual progression reviews at the university (which we mentioned in our last project update in May) went well, and we have the go ahead to continue with our project for another year!

We’ve had a few postcards placed in our postbox (which is on the reception desk inside the Staffordshire Record Office). If you have a memory of past floods or droughts that you’d like to share, do drop in and write us a postcard, or send us a message via our contact form.

Alice has been away for the last few weeks, teaching elements of archaeological surveying to undergraduate students on the Liverpool Archaeology Field School in North Wales. During this time she has been starting to analyse some extracts from diaries and letters examined as part of our volunteer project, and draw out themes in the way hot and dry weather are described. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems positive descriptions of dry weather at harvest time are the most common type of dry weather description. Look out for a further post in a few days time explaining what Alice’s volunteers have been looking at and what they have found so far.

Helen has been examining court records, particularly Quarter Sessions. She has been using the archive catalogue to comb through Quarter Sessions for floods, bridge repairs, water courses and grain thefts (the last one to help with a thorny problem with units of measurement*). With the help of one of the volunteers, Richard, she has been looking at clauses about water management in leases for mills, and has started to look at improving their cataloguing. She has been drawing up a list of new index terms, and has been working through some stacks of unlisted documents to create more complete catalogue entries for them. Helen has also helped to host two work experience placements, who have helped finalise the list of leases to study and have started working on the mill accounts, involving an impromptu paleography lesson! Helen is still looking for volunteers, so if you are interested please check out the call for volunteers!

-Alice and Helen

* See: https://floodanddrought.wordpress.com/2017/07/27/how-things-work-or-not-measuring-volumes-of-grain/