Somerset Archives and Local Studies

A reminder that we’re holding a Memory Café tomorrow morning – a chance to reminisce about Taunton, see some documents that might bring back memories and have a natter over a nice cup of tea. We’d love to see you there! https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha

🥳 Woohoo! We are super proud to celebrate having transcribed 100 tithings and parishes from the Land Tax collection, listing names & places for a huge & busy period of history. But that’s only 1/7th of the county so if you fancy having a try, let us know (it's a project you can work on from home!) Details on how to volunteer can be found here: https://swheritage.org.uk/about-us/volunteering/

The Museum of Somerset’s exhibition ‘60 Years of Doctor Who Art’ 🖼 has stirred up some nostalgia of the sixties just in time for Memory Café on Friday 6. 📅
More here: https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha
So we hunted through our archives and museum collections for sixties items. Here’s what we’ve found.
‘Judy’: a Great new picture story paper for girls’ 1960 📰 ... Anyone read these?
A photograph of Pontins Chalets at Brean, 1969🚖 - courtesy of Somerset Archives and Local Studies
A Blue Morphy Richards Hair Dryer …Beehive anyone? 💇
A Kodak Coloursnap Camera 🎞📸
A Reel to reel tape recorder. Fidelity Radio Ltd. ...Remember Beatlemania? 📻
Mary Quant minidress 👗
We hope these have inspired some of your Taunton memories ready for Memory Café on Friday. We’d love to see your memories in the comments!
Here's a couple of our memories:
🔥“Does anyone remember coal-men in the winter? When I was young the last coal-yard was Goodlands in Taunton town where Pizza Express and The Coal Orchard are now. Unlike parcel delivery companies now, the coal-man had to carry 50kg sacks of coal on their backs and take them all the way through the house to the coal shed. Ten trips and that only one delivery to one house. That’s well above the maximum safe lifting weight these days.” 🔥
🎬“I remember going to the pictures with my mum when very small and seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins, plus Oliver and Half a Sixpence, all classic 60's films, it was a real treat to see a film in those days! There were three cinemas in Taunton, the Gaumont (now Mecca Bingo), the Odeon on the corner of Staplegrove Road and Station Road (now Laverock Court), and the Gaiety just above the Station.”
🍭“I went to Huish Grammar School, where Sainsburys is now, near Silver Street. The headmaster’s office was in a wooden hut in the playground. Legend claimed the PE teacher had been in the Norwegian Resistance. The science teacher had been a prisoner of war. The caretaker and his wife lived on site and ran the tuckshop out of one of their windows. Jam doughnuts at the morning break were 2½d and twice a week there were hot pasties at 5d.” 🍭

Read the full blog about sixties items from our museum stores here: https://swheritage.org.uk/news/somerset-in-the-1960s-a-reminiscence/

Don't forget to drop in to see the Doctor Who art exhibition at The Museum of Somerset: https://swheritage.org.uk/events/doctor-who/

Many businesses have come and gone from Taunton over the years - the high street has changed a lot since the 1950s. What do you remember about our town? What were your favourite shops? We’d love to hear your stories at our Memory Café event this Friday https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha

you used to be able to drive past the Tudor Tavern in Taunton? How fab are these photos showing how it used to be? Come & share more memories like this or see other comparisons of at our Memory Café event. Find out more here https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha

Mary Siraut, County Editor of the Somerset Victoria County History, will be leading a walk of Higher Town, Minehead, on Sunday 29 September. Spaces are limited. To book, email [email protected] (or phone 01823 347456). A suggested donation of £5 will help support the work of the VCH

Okay, can anyone guess in which city this year's Archives and Records Association Conference is being held?! We have a delegate there today

The centre of Taunton flooded in 1960, affecting over 300 homes & businesses. Was one of them yours? What do you remember? Come to our Taunton Memory Café on 6 September & learn more about this & other moments in Taunton’s living memory https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha

Taunton has changed a lot over the past 100 years. Curious to know what it used to look like or keen to share your memories of the town? Come along to our Memory Café event for a chat & a reminisce about Somerset's county town (there’ll be 🫖 too!) https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha

We still have a few spaces on our rescheduled Practical Preservation event on Saturday 12 October at the Somerset Heritage Centre. Further details, including how to book, can be found here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/practical-preservation-a-discovery-saturday-event-tickets-948750025867?aff=oddtdtcreator (tickets: £12 per person)

Practical Preservation: A Discovery Saturday Event Join our Senior Conservator for a practical workshop showing how to look after your family or community archive.

In 1974 Queen played at The County Hotel in Taunton – were you there? Come to our Memory Café event on 6 September and be reminded of lots of other nostalgic Taunton moments. Perhaps you can share some of your own? We’d love to hear them! https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha 🎸🥁👨‍🎤

Our region’s new National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project, Sounds of the South West, is looking for help! If you are an experienced evaluator of NLHF schemes, please take a look at their brief at https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/work-for-us/jobs/ Thanks to National Lottery players for making this all possible!

Jobs and paid opportunities | Bristol Museums Want to work for an exciting organisation at the heart of Bristol's culture? Find out what job opportunities we have coming up.

Did you know The Beatles played at The Gaumont in Taunton, in 1963? Maybe you remember it, or other big stars, visiting the town? Perhaps you were there & it seems like it was but Yesterday! Come along to our Memory Café event and share your Taunton memories! https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha

Did you know that several Doctor Who episodes feature Somerset locations? ‘Time & the Rani’ (from 1987) was filmed at Cloford & Westdown quarries, near Frome, & starred Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford and the late Kate O’Mara (https://swheritage.org.uk/news/doctor-who-in-somerset/). Here's an aerial view shot of the quarries taken from the Somerset Historic Environment Record rather than the Tardis (https://www.somersetheritage.org.uk/)

Apparently it’s – a purrfect opportunity to recycle a collage of colleagues’ cats from a few months ago! 😺🐈🐈‍⬛

Did you know that Mary Rand, winner of the gold medal in the women's long jump at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, was from Wells? Her world record beating jump is commemorated in the Market Place at Wells by a plaque that’s the same length as that very lonnnnng jump!

Another Olympic water polo/swimming champion with a Weston super Mare link, Paulo Radmilovic (born in Cardiff in 1886) won 4 gold medals across 3 successive Olympics (1908-1920). Here’s a planning application he submitted for a new house in the town in 1930! (Ref. D/B/wsm/24/1/4535: Weston super Mare Borough Collection/North Somerset Council: https://somerset-describe.epexio.com/admin/ #/catalogues/somerset/descriptions/D/B/wsm/24/1/4535?entityId=1a006afc-dfa3-0629-725e-8aca713e310d)

Somerset has produced a few Olympic champions, including Thomas Henry Thould (1886-1971) of Weston super Mare. He was a member of the British water polo team which won the gold medal in the 1908 London Olympics. He was also a member of the Weston super Mare Polo Team. Here’s the certificate he was awarded after the British Team won gold at the 1908 London Olympics (ref. DD/X/AUS/217/3) & some photos of Thomas taken in 1907 (ref. DD/X/AUS/217/2)

We’re pleased to have played a part in the recent Shepton Mallet Gaol episode of the Channel 4 series ‘Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History’ with Robbie Rinder. Did you know you can view many of the gaol’s registers on Ancestry (https://ow.ly/PI0Q50SRbKA)?

It's the second and final day of the 2024 Taunton Flower Show. Following the re-election of Mr Stacey as secretary of the Taunton Deane Horticultural and Floricultural Society at the Annual Meeting in December 1927, a fellow officer joked that while the job of a bus conductor was a serious business, requiring much patience “.. it is like a holiday compared with that of a flower show secretary.”

The proceedings of the Annual Meeting, published in the Somerset County Gazette (ref. A/DIF/95/42), also mentions the high regard people held for the Taunton Flower Show & how it had been "important, not only in recent years, but for more than half a century." In fact, the first show was held in 1831.

We’re feeling inspired by the Rail Fest over in Devon this weekend (https://swheritage.org.uk/events/rail-fest/). So we’re going to rummage through our Somerset Studies Library for some rail history books.

Read about the history of North Devon railway: https://swheritage.org.uk/news/the-north-devon-railway-line/ - it might inspire you either in your research or in your travels!

🚂The North Devon Railway Line opened in 1854 linking North and South Devon. In Somerset, the Great Western Railway reached Weston-Super-Mare in 1841 and Taunton in 1842. By the late 19th Century Somerset had plenty of train lines that criss-crossed the county. Somerset and Devon Archives hold a wide range of records including plans and reference books relating to the coming of the railways. 🚂🚉

Access Somerset Archives catalogue: https://somerset-cat.swheritage.org.uk/, where you will also find research guides to help you: https://somerset-cat.swheritage.org.uk/guides

Did you know Taunton Flower Show is one of the longest running Flower Shows in the world? Will you be going this weekend? Have you ever been? Why not share your reminiscences at our Memory Café on 6 September. We'd love to see you https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha

We’re holding a Memory Café on 6 September – it’s a chance to reminisce about Taunton, see some documents that might bring back memories and spark a chat, and have a cup of tea and a natter to share your stories. We’d love to see you there! https://tinyurl.com/5n93a9ha 🫖

Heritage Open Days -Memory Café Visit our Memory Cafe at Somerset Heritage Centre: share your memories of Taunton in the 20th century, be reminded with photographs and documents relating to the town, and enjoy a cup of tea.

To the casual observer this is just a dull cardboard box - rectangular, brown &, err, made of card. However, this isn’t just any kind of box. Oh no! This is an archive box made from acid free card & brass staples to store unique & irreplaceable documents. What was that? Are we struggling to think of anything exciting for a Social Media post this week? Quite possibly.

The South West Heritage Trust are pleased to announce that we will have a stall at The Blake Gardens Takeover event on Sunday 4th August 2024!

✨11:00 am - 4:00 pm, FREE entry✨

We will be running a FREE screen printing activity, with a custom design to represent Bridgwater, featuring a silhouette of the Somerset Brick and Tile Museum.

For more information about the event, follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/share/HRKSXXuPo98Lf5kR/

Somerset Council Bridgwater Town Council The Cobblestones Somerset Archives and Local Studies

Alas, this was the only reference to a police telephone box we could find amongst our collections (C/CA/18/26/29: https://somerset-describe.epexio.com/records/C/CA/18/26/29). It’s a bit disappointing, unlike the Adventures in Time and Space: 60 Years of Doctor Who Art at the Museum of Somerset! (https://swheritage.org.uk/events/doctor-who/)

It's . This was taken by William McCutchen, a medical assistant who served patients in Stoke sub Hamdon, Montacute, Odcombe & Norton sub Hamdon, 1890-1894, but his collection includes some photos of Kildale, North Yorkshire. This one has us stumped though. Does anyone recognise the location?