Blogging a Building (23) – the end of an era, by Heather Forbes

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On 7^th December 2020 we signed the completion certificate for Gloucestershire Heritage Hub.  This signified the end of the snagging period following the handover of the completed building and site in August 2019.  It therefore seemed appropriate to bring to an end this series of Blogging a Building, started by Jill Shonk back in February 2017. You can read the whole series here by searching for Blogging a Building, and see a pictorial record of how the building project developed from January 2017 to December 2020. We accidently missed out number 18, ambitiously jumping from 17 to 19! 

How to preserve your family or community archive: the Collection Care Covid-19 lockdown blogs: Blog OH #1

Do you remember when….?

• Short of conversation when phoning elderly relatives in lockdown?
• Want to capture family stories for future generations?
• Know someone who witnessed significant local events?

One activity that households self-isolating together could do together is to chat to each other about their memories.  Our memories are unique.  Even if a group of us have witnessed the same event, all of us will remember it in a different way.  Sharing memories across generations is a particularly powerful way of both inspiring younger people, and confirming to the elderly that their lives have value and are important.

Dr Ollie Taylor recording the memories of Brian Mince, photographer for Fielding & Platt, 1952-74

#ShrubHub update

What a difference a few weeks makes! We can say that for two things at the Heritage Hub at the moment – the building and also the community garden!

Work began (in thought, anyway) on the garden last summer when we decided to see if we could make our current outdoor space into a wildlife-friendly, educational, safe haven for visitors, residents and of course the local wildlife – including provision for two beehives taking residence at one end of the garden. We approached the Cotswold Gardening School to see if their students would be able to create designs for the garden as part of their projects, and came up with some ideas on how to raise money for the garden and attract as many visitors as possible. By the end of last year we had eight designs to choose from: the one we chose was one that suited our brief best and since then we have been working closely with the designer to make the plan fit completely with what we had in mind.

Cotswold Gardening School students measuring the garden Cotswold Gardening School students presenting their designs to Heritage Hub staff

We then started fundraising, using online crowdfunding and other sources to raise money for the garden. Young Gloucestershire’s Princes Trust team spent a couple of weeks with us in May.  They planted wildflower seeds and also renovated our picnic tables and some “heritage pillars” from a demolished outbuilding (we hope to use these as part of a volunteers’ shelter). And then about two months ago, everything started to take shape. The flower and herb borders for the formal area of the garden (nearest the new Dunrossil Centre) were marked out and then dug over the space of a few weeks by some tireless volunteers, both from within our own staff and local people who wanted to help – this all took place during our heatwave so was hot and tiring work. On 29^th July, the plants were due to be delivered, ready for planting out in the newly dug borders the following day.

One of four borders marked out to be dug out for plants, and Mark and Richard, two of our volunteers braving the heat to pull up the turf! 

To cut a long story short, the plants actually arrived in the morning of the 30^th July (apologies to anyone who was in the office with me on the 29^th!) just as it started pouring with rain. However, our team of volunteers from the Cotswold Gardening School and the local area – and one member of staff – donned their raincoats and set to work planting out all the flowers, herbs and shrubs. Within a day, our formal area had been transformed from a large expanse of grass to a beautifully presented garden with a variety of wildlife-friendly, colourful and wonderfully scented plants.

The volunteers at the end of planting day!

The next step was to make sure all the plants could establish themselves and grow by watering them daily. Rotas were drawn up to make sure they were done every day (even if it rained!) and this will continue until the end of September. Again, this is being done with a mixture of staff (in their own time) and community volunteers. Luckily, the weather has been dreadful since they were planted so we haven’t needed to spend as much time watering as we would have done a month earlier.

One of the borders, the day after planting.

 We then had a bit of a surprise on the weekend of the 10^th/11^th August, when our first colony of bees arrived in the garden rather sooner than intended. Unfortunately they were having some problems at the apiary they were being kept in (they were being bullied by another colony!), so rather than bring them home in October or March as intended, suddenly the Bee Team had to transport them quickly on the evening of 10^th August. They are now in situ and at the time of writing seem to be doing well after a few days of getting used to their new home and their new foraging opportunities. 

The temporary beehive, safely transported from a few miles away, and the first Gloucestershire Heritage Hub beehive with John and Ally, the Bee Team, who are very excited to have them on site! 

So – what’s next for the garden?

There are still some plants to go in the current borders, some trees, and a “winter interest” border which will be the other end of the garden. We also hope to have a hoggin path that will lead from the formal garden towards the wild area.

Our Heritage Hub garden party will be held on the 8^th September, 1.30-5.00.  Everyone is welcome so why not come along and see our progress and plans for the next stage! Many thanks to all those who given up their time to help with the digging, planting and watering: Diana and the Cotswold Gardening School, Mark, Richard, Jonathan, Angela, John, Jenny, Andrew, Kate O, Kate M, Ally and Heather.

Blogging a Building 22 – New signs of life, by Kim Kenny

After a period of hibernation the Heritage Hub building project has come back to life. On 1st April 2019, our new contractors, Beard Construction, took over from where Lakehouse left off.  Beard is aiming to complete the building project by August 2019.

Howard Read, the new site manager getting ready to complete the project.

Further delving into Dowty

Hello from a combination of my desk facing the wall (and just able to see the wooden sculpture being worked on, and the mosaics being installed) and Strongroom 11, which houses the bulk of the Dowty archive and where I seem to spend most of the time I’m not at my desk.

It is now 6 months since the project to work on the Dowty project formally started, which means I am a quarter of the way through – which is actually quite scary. But I’ve been working on it a bit before that too, and can finally say that I’m fairly up to speed with various engineering terms I had never heard about before, as well as the Dowty company structure, locations of its various offices and factories all over the world, and some key people within the Dowty group whose papers I am working on.

Dowty Rotol rugby sevens team from the 1950s

For those of you who don’t know, the Dowty archive takes up about 1500 boxes’ worth of space on our shelves. That’s a huge number of records, and my approach has been to work on the archive semi-systematically. When I first started, I spent quite a lot of time in the strongroom labelling boxes and noting what was in them, which had been roughly done on the outside anyway, and also opening up each transfer packet (the transfer packets tend to be stored out of boxes on the shelves, and probably take up about 1/3 of the space) and noting down in further detail what was in each packet. Once I’d finished that, I then went back to the beginning to work on the transfer packets as a proper listing project (rather than noting files down) and also to open up the boxes and list and package the material in those. The semi-systematic approach was a deliberate ploy to keep myself on my toes, as I had quickly realised that listing a lot of the same types of record would get quite dull! So I decided to work on a bay – 20 boxes – at a time and then moved on to some transfer packets for another 20 boxes’ worth, then back to the original boxes. Given that the first 78 boxes in the collection were very small files of correspondence relating to patents from the 1960s-1980s, this allowed me to step away from the world of patents and into the world of audits, or accounts, or legal files, before becoming tired of them and being able to surround myself in patents again.

At the time of writing, I have now listed, numbered and repackaged 173 boxes and 200 transfer packets, and the pace is quickening – depending on the material inside the box, I’m able to do between 3 and 8 boxes a day, but the first 80 boxes were very slow as there was so much in them, and this is now out of the way. I decided to repackage the items as I went along, and give them temporary numbers (the box number and a sub-number) so that when I come to The Big Sort towards the end of the project, all I will have to do is write the permanent catalogue numbers on the documents rather than fiddle around with folders and archive tape as well, which will also save time.

My aim is to have 500 of the 750 standard archive boxes of material listed and repackaged by the beginning of April next year, and 700 of the 1100 transfer packets. This means that the second half of the project will involve less listing and more sorting, and will also give me more time to tackle the photographic material and electronic material which is housed in our special photographic strongroom, which volunteers are starting to list now but which will need more careful packaging and storage, taking up more of my attention.

I have 5 on-site volunteers currently, and a further four who are involved in oral history interviews and work on our website, which has been taking shape and is really being populated after its launch at the end of August. I am about to welcome another volunteer and as I work on the material I keep finding tasks for volunteers to do. Two are working on patents, two (and the new volunteer) on photographs and one on site plans. I am really looking forward to volunteers getting bogged down in listing apprentice records and doing some social history research using the brochures and newsletters.

If you’d like to look at the website, the web address is www.dowtyheritage.org.uk. If you have any photographs or stories to share about the Dowty company, then the website is an opportunity to do that. It would be great to hear more stories and see more pictures from peoples’ time working for this massive company.

 

Blogging a building (21)

Building news – all about the Artists

The artists have been busy throughout the year researching, meeting with volunteers, visitors and staff, preparing and finally making. The mosaic panels and the textile panels are now complete and are here for visitors to come and see. If you are visiting the new Heritage Hub, have a look at the artwork and see how heritage can be presented in very different and beautiful ways. 

Blogging a Building (20)

Building news

After 18 months of building work, the end is approaching and we will soon be able to take possession of our lovely new facilities.

Blogging a building (19)

If you have visited Gloucestershire Archives since the newly refurbished public area re-opened you will have noticed that we are still a building site. Phase two of the build is now in full swing with the new training suite under construction. We are looking forward to the end of August when all the building work will be completed.

Getting some perspex (tive)

Some people say they can’t stand computers…

…but people in Hesters Way Library have helped come up with a low-tech solution to this issue. A group of 14 people in a pilot session there were enjoying using the House of Memories technology: the app was doing its job and sparking memories and lively conversations.

So farewell then, HORSA…

No, not the legendary Saxon brothers Hengist and Horsa. We have just said goodbye to the Frith Centre, the last remaining HORSA hut on our site, as it has been demolished to make way for our new entrance and training suite.

The Frith Centre, most recently used as our temporary searchroom