'What's beneath your feet? A SW region Archives 4 All project'
Organisation: Gloucestershire Archives in partnership with the Friends of Gloucestershire Archives and The National Archives (A2A)
Grant Award: £49,100
The project aims to open up access to a unique archival heritage resource for Gloucestershire using digital technology and actively involving volunteers and community groups.
The focus of the project is a series of over 160 official inclosure awards and their associated maps relating to individual parishes in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire (historically part of the county of Gloucester). The awards, made by local act of parliament and dating from the 18th century onwards, enabled local landowners to replace ancient open-field systems of agriculture with consolidated plots of landholding that could be managed more efficiently. The awards are hand-written documents - which often run over many large pages - setting out the names of landowners and tenants and describing field boundaries, common lands, ditches and drains, roads and rights of way. Awards were also made for some towns in the county, such as Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, so they can provide important evidence for the early development of the urban environment. The associated maps are sometimes the earliest surviving map for a parish: they are large-scale, hand-drawn and often very attractive records and provide a unique view of the physical appearance of the landscape up to 200 years ago.
Prior to the project, access was limited to personal visitors to Gloucestershire Archives and users found the records awkward to handle and often very difficult to read because of handwriting styles and length of text. The records were at risk of damage through wear and tear during production and handling.
The project funded the digitisation of both the maps and the awards which was carried out by an external contractor (ICAM) on-site at Gloucestershire Archives. Once the digital images had been prepared, we could supply copies to volunteers. Over 100 volunteers took part in the project, donating over 3000 hours of their time in order to produce word-for-word transcriptions of the awards. The project also supported a programme of outreach activities including several workshops and displays at centres throughout the county. Formal learning resources for children were produced through pilot work with a local primary school and we have developed a series of downloadable resources and a loans box. There has been extensive publicity for the project through the media and internet via a growing network of community groups and individuals across Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire.
Outcomes
Needless to say, we learnt much along the way and had to be adaptable. On a personal note, the experience has certainly better prepared me for planning, budgeting and managing future projects.
Conservation
Initially, we found that we did not need to carry out as much
physical conservation on the original records prior to digitisation
as we had anticipated. The camera rig installed by ICAM gave a
great depth of focus and small but powerful magnets held the
documents flat - resulting in extremely good images. In many cases
the awards and maps are fastened together, so it made sense to
digitise them together too. ICAM devised a system to mount two
cameras on the rig - one to scan the maps at high resolution, the
other to take quick single shots of the awards pages. This reduced
the overall handling of the records and streamlined the
process..
ICAM also helped us to set up the images so that they can be viewed via dual monitors using a dedicated PC in the searchroom. Users can thus see the map alongside the award. We have run taster sessions for new users and have produced a range of short guides. Users can buy copies on CD or as colour paper prints. We are monitoring their feedback to help us plan future developments. Crucially we are reducing further wear and tear on the original records as they will not be produced for visitors.
Participation
The uptake by volunteers far surpassed our expectations and it has
proved quite a challenge, though very rewarding, to manage such a
large 'army' of keen helpers. The appeal of the project for
many was its flexibility - copies of the awards were supplied on CD
(with guidance notes for those volunteers unable to attend training
sessions) so that the transcribing could be done at home, at times
to suit the individual. Wherever possible, we have encouraged
people to work in pairs or groups so that they can check each
other's transcriptions. To date we have received 76 completed
awards (almost 50% of the total) and there are many more well in
progress.
Volunteers' feedback has been very positive – for the majority it was their first experience of looking at inclosure records and apart from the enjoyment of finding out more about the history of their local area, they gained a lot of satisfaction by tackling unfamiliar handwriting and learning more about software and computers generally. Many involved their own family and friends – all willing helpers, I assume - only a handful dropped out and by contrast many have become 'hooked' and are keen to do more. Although the project technically ends with the final drawdown from HLF in May, we will continue to offer and support this activity as part of our general volunteering programme.
Learning
The project paid for a consultant to work with a pilot primary
school to produce a range of learning resources based on and
inspired by the inclosure records. Activities for the children
included using a surveyor's chain loaned from one of our
museums to measure plots in their school playing field; dressing up
in replica costumes and re-enacting a cottager's ejection from
his home (based on an actual court case); creating a village guide
using evidence from the inclosure and OS maps and field walking.
The teachers and children thoroughly enjoyed their involvement and
we are now advertising the resource package to all schools in
Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire.
There is obviously much scope for using the inclosure maps for landscape and archaeology research. Gloucestershire County Council's archaeologists have experimented loading sample inclosure images onto their GIS system and this is something that we hope we will be able to develop in the future, with public access to the GIS data being a longer term aim. In addition, we are using the volunteers' transcriptions to help test out our procedures for preserving born-digital records in the archives.
Overall, we are very pleased with the way in which the project has realised and in some areas exceeded its aims.
Julie Courtenay, Head of Collections,Gloucestershire Archives,
01452 425297,
julie.courtenay@gloucestershire.gov.uk
