“The aim of our project has been to make these underused records accessible to all and to help people use them both creatively and for research.”
Beth Elliott, Project Archivist
Northumberland Archives applied to the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) for a project to make manorial records more accessible.
The Manorial Documents Register for Northumberland had been revised from 2014-2018 and made available online which increased awareness of manorial records locally. However, Archive staff noticed that people, who could have used these records for their local and family history research, were not doing so.
Many people weren’t aware of the records and many more felt they were too difficult a source to use. The challenge was to make these important records accessible to all, not just academics, by removing the fear of the unknown and demonstrating the range of content within them.
£73,100 was awarded from NLHF which enabled Northumberland Archives to employ a part-time project archivist, digitise a range of original manor court records to supplement existing images, and carry out associated activities. The grant was awarded in late 2019 but work began in Spring 2022 (due to pandemic delays) and will continue into early 2025.
The project has engaged 63 volunteers to date, including three student placements from Strathclyde University and people from local groups in four localities: Allendale, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Hexham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The volunteers have set about transcribing sample manorial documents from manors around the county. Training and support were provided to de-mystify the records and assist with palaeography. Volunteers could work on any of the locations and on documents that interested them, such as those relating to their own house or ancestors. Some of the Berwick group still meet weekly in-person, but other volunteers can work remotely from digital scans of documents which are uploaded to a Google drive.
Education sessions were held with Year 3 pupils who showed great interest in documents relating to Hexham’s market. They went on to create animations which are now available on the archives’ YouTube channel. Additionally, talks and workshops were held around the county introducing people to manorial records and the ways they can be interpreted. In total, over 4000 hours of time have been contributed to the project by volunteers.
A section of the archives’ website is now dedicated to the project, housing completed transcripts and associated images. It also includes a project description, glossary, map, FAQs, an introductory video, notes on the histories of individual manors, and a guide to the Manorial Documents Register. These resources foster a sense of openness by allowing researchers to see typical formats and contents of manorial records, and by helping users of all ages and experience learn more about these records and their use. The accompanying learning resources can be re-used in future years to encourage even more people to investigate this underused class of records.