Historic Flooding and Drought in Staffordshire
@FloodandDrought
A journal article (and a chapter of Alice's PhD thesis) has recently been published in the Open Access journal Climate of the Past, which used some of the weather data collected by the Historic Flooding and Drought Volunteers. The Historic Flooding and Drought project volunteers read eighteenth and nineteenth century diaries, letters and similar records… Continue reading Reconstruction precipitation from diaries
It has been a while since we posted an update here, but we have been busy with lots of things! Our volunteer project officially came to an end in September 2018, and we had a little party with some of our volunteers to celebrate. Although the volunteer project officially ended in September, some of our… Continue reading Project Update July 2019
It's now been over a year since some of our volunteers first started and a lot has been achieved in that time. Richard has been with us for nearly the entire length of the project, and is likely to finish working on the leases in the next few weeks. He has so far examined substantially… Continue reading May 2018 Project Update
We were full to capacity at the Staffordshire Record Office on the 10th February for our study day. Dr Neil Macdonald started off the day with an overview of the importance of research into historic weather extremes. Neil is Alice and Helen's main supervisor at the University of Liverpool. More about his research can be… Continue reading Historic Flood and Drought Study Day February 2018
Since our last update in August, we have both been focusing on working out how we are going to use the information we have collected and continue to collect at the record office in our theses. Terrifyingly, we are now in the second year of our three years of funding. Alice presented her field-name research at the… Continue reading November 2017 Project Update
An update from Alice on what the volunteers looking at weather in diaries and letters have been looking at and what they are finding. Elizabeth Hervey Diaries We have already done a couple of blogs on the Elizabeth Hervey diaries (see here and here), and they are turning out to be a fantastic source of weather… Continue reading What have our volunteers been up to?
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 reading August 2017 Project Update
One of the sources I've been interested in is the accounts of Burton mills, which a work experience placement was kind enough to begin working on for me last week. They cover about five years early in the 1700s and include week-by-week grain sales, wages, and expenses (particularly for horses). So far there has been… Continue reading How things work (or not): measuring volumes of grain
I went to The National Archives a few weeks ago, between the 13th and 16th of June. The purpose of my visit was to view assize records that might relate to issues with flooding and waterways in Staffordshire. Ironically it was an extremely hot, dry week, and a friend I met for dinner expressed bafflement… Continue reading Helen’s visit to The National Archives, and 17th century problems with Hopwas Bridge
One of our volunteers, Richard, has been kindly looking through some leases for mills and the land surrounding them, and has just finished with a series of leases from Rugeley. The series (D603/E/3/1 to D603/E/3/319) consisted of leases for land in Cannock and Rugeley from the records of the Paget family, and from the series… Continue reading Mills project update: Leases from Rugeley
Historic Flooding and Drought in Staffordshire 