Blackpool Transport Services Ltd
Blackpool Transport Services Ltd, is a public transport company, wholly owned by Blackpool Council, operating both buses and trams. A major project was completed to relocate its archives, including approximately 3,000 technical drawings, from dilapidated premises where battles against water ingress and debris were constant. The archives were moved to safe and suitable storage areas within their main site over a six-month period, almost entirely with volunteer labour.
Image credit: Blackpool Transport Services Ltd.
Manchester Music Mooch Partnership
Manchester Music Mooch is a free, augmented reality powered music heritage app and website exploring Manchester’s grass roots music culture. Users are guided across Manchester City Centre, visiting places of musical significance and hearing stories told by well-known presenters. This partnership project was delivered by University of Salford, Wild in Art, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester Digital Music Archive, Manchester Accommodation Bid and Visit Manchester with National Lottery Heritage Funding.
Image credit: Toasted productions & Royal Northern College of Music
George House Trust (GHT) & Manchester Archives
George House Trust celebrated their 40th anniversary with ‘Acting Up! 40 Years of HIV Activism’, a powerful exhibition delving into Greater Manchester’s response to HIV over the past four decades. Funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the exhibition explored the stories of organisations, partnerships, and individuals who have tirelessly fought for a world where HIV holds no one back.
ACT UP Manchester and George House Trust protest the visit of Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley, 1993. Image credit: George House Trust digital archive
Lancashire Archives and Local History
‘Keeping East Lancashire in the Picture’ is a 2-year project that saw 75 volunteers of different ages and backgrounds digitise and catalogue thousands of historic photographs from Lancashire’s libraries and archives, supported by a project archivist and project assistant. Funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund and Friends of Lancashire Archives, the project reached school children, young people, and people of South Asian Heritage who are usually underrepresented as users of archive and heritage collections.
Pupils from St. John Southworth R.C. Primary, Nelson with Dr. Carmel Hustler (Keeping East Lancashire in the Picture Project Archivist). Image Credit: Rebecca Bridges Photography.
Liverpool Record Office (LRO) & Merseyside Jewish Representative Council (MJRC)
Liverpool’s Jewish community established their first synagogue around 1745. In the 1960s, two fires at the Greenbank Drive synagogue led to the destruction of community records but a prominent community member, Karl Abrahams, started collecting archival material. This collection grew into the archive that exists today. Working in partnership, the LRO and MJRC have now added to that existing collection and catalogued records that have accumulated over the last 20 years. The collection now celebrates 280 years of Jewish communities in Liverpool.
Image credit: Merseyside Jewish Representative Council + 296 IZA Papers relating to the Rev. Izak Goller
Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) Special Collections & Archives
LJMU partnered with the Association of Past Students of I M Marsh College of Physical Education to celebrate its 125th anniversary by curating ‘A Legacy in Motion’ collection displaying decades of donations from past students. This was comprised mainly of student-created records, artwork, clothing, and memorabilia. The exhibition served to build and retain trust at a challenging time when the I M Marsh campus had just been brought to market.
Image credit: Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) Special Collections & Archives
Oldham Archives
Over the last 12 months, the team at Oldham Archives have treated and removed mould present on 2,972 large format volumes at an off-site store. This minimises the risk of introducing mould into the new store when they move the collections into new purpose built archive premises.
Image credit: Oldham Archives, UDR/2/3/2/51
The Hallé Concerts Society
As part of their ‘Ancoats: The Hallé Story’ project, The Hallé Concerts Society set up a programme of engagement activities including heritage supper clubs held in Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats. Meals are designed by Café Cotton and inspired by historic menus, tour diaries and newspaper cuttings kept safe in the Hallé’s archive for 166 years. These supper clubs regularly sell out and have sparked a trend in cultural supper clubs around Manchester.
Image Credit: Hallé Concert Society. Goonan Archive
University of Salford (UoS) Archives and Special Collections
As part of UoS’s Graduate Attainment Programme, a graduate intern created a digital archive celebrating the musical history of Maxwell Hall — the university’s iconic live music venue. The collection brought together materials from university archives, alumni, and the public, including a Blondie gig rider, posters for The Jam, and rare photos from a performance by The Smiths. This cross-departmental project helped the intern secure a communications role at a charity.
Photograph of U2 during their concert at Maxwell Hall, published in the Salford Gazette, October 1981. Image credit: Jim Mooney/University of Salford Students Union