When we are honoured by a Royal visit nowadays, we await with confidence a punctual arrival by helicopter or Rolls Royce, and there is often a great deal of preparation ...
This is an account of the papers of Eleanor Archer; a local lady whose records are held at Warwickshire County Record Office, reference CR 367.
An educated woman
Miss Archer was born ...
On this day, Warwick had shined its shoes and brushed itself down to welcome Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother as she came to open the completed Shire Hall ...
“I think this accursed war will soon be over now, and that will settle all those worries for you, once and for all.” This was a line written by 19 year ...
At Christmas time families often have their own traditions and stories for the holiday period, unique to their own personal histories and communities. In many cases, these stories are represented ...
It isn’t Christmas without a mince pie and once upon a time it wouldn’t have been a mince pie without the addition of actual minced meat. When the Warwickshire County ...
Over the week of the 9th of October, the five-day weather forecasts were predicting unseasonably warm weather for the weekend of the 14th, culminating on Monday 16th with temperatures in ...
An annual event in Warwick, Stratford upon Avon and some Warwickshire villages was ‘The Mop’ (Mop Fair) a fair which takes place in October and was originally a hiring fair, ...
Notes on life in Warwick during the Second World War, made by Miss Nora Slater from her own diaries.
1945
The year opened cold with snow in January and February, but with ...
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 14th April 1865. A tumultuous event in world affairs, this act also reached Warwick, and excited much talk and reflection amongst the councillors, media, and ...
Not an early demo of a Thin Lizzy album, but instead a report into weather of particular savage brutality. On 9th July 1905 a terrible storm swept across the UK. ...
It’s funny the things you find when looking for something else.
A regular visitor to the Warwickshire County Record Office (name withheld to protect the guilty) drew our attention to a ...
Pageant week got underway on Sunday 1 July with a special service at St. Mary’s Collegiate Church, preached by the Bishop of Bristol. Special services were also held in other ...
The pageant of 1906 was accounted a great success, and did much to raise the temperature of the ‘pageant fever’ developing in the wake of the Sherborne performance. With the ...
In June 1905 Edward Hicks, an enterprising Warwick journalist (and author of a book about Caradoc), pounced on a passing suggestion in the Daily Telegraph that Warwick would be an ideal site ...
Elizabeth’s visit to Kenilworth Castle in 1575 has been well documented, and indeed forms the basis of an article on this site. During the Queen’s lengthy stay there was the ...
This minute book documents the activities of the Warwick Statute Fair Ox-Roasting Committee. The committee was a small voluntary group of men which met regularly each year between September and ...
In 1963 the Royal Show found a permanent home in the National Agriculture Centre, Stoneleigh, where it stayed until its closure in 2009. Yet this was not the first time ...
In 2015, a portrait of King Henry VIII, painted by the studio of Hans Holbein during the lifetime of England’s most iconic king, was sold by Merlin Entertainments at Sothebys ...
After his progress through the Midlands, Henry VIII stayed at Warwick Castle from at least Tuesday 5th to Sunday 10th September 1511. Henry’s royal progresses lacked the fanciful extravagance of his ...
(Continued from part one)
Prison life
On the night of Tuesday 1st July, Agnes Lake was re-arrested and was once again taken to Warwick Prison. She was forbidden to write to her ...
Henry VIII had previously stayed at Warwick Castle from at least Tuesday 5th to Sunday 10th September 1511. He was to return to the castle for a second visit thirty ...
Fancy dress, or ‘guising’, has been a pastime throughout Warwickshire’s history. On these occasions, people were free to enact different roles, or even perform different genders.
A set of postcards from outside ...
When you hear someone mention ‘The Warwick Pageant’, you might assume that they were referring to the pageant of 1906. However, while this was the first such event, it was ...