‘Marvellous Manuscripts’ in the Portland Building.

Conservation staff were on hand at ‘Marvellous Manuscripts’ to show the public how they repair and care for the unique documents and rare books that we have. Although now kept safely in Manuscripts and Special Collections, the ravages of time, damp and general wear-and-tear mean that some documents and books require a lot of work to ensure they can be made available to the public.

Copies of nineteenth and twentieth century maps and photographs of Nottingham provoked great interest, as did an example of a crossed letter (where the paper was turned sideways and re-used to save space)  that visitors were invited to try to read. It was also an opportunity to dispel the myth that archives are just ‘dusty documents’ by demonstrating our latest on-line exhibition ‘Windows on War’. The University of Nottingham’s rare collection of Soviet war posters is unique in the UK and one of the largest internationally, which we have blogged about previously.

Keen anglers catching fish (and occasionally each other!).

‘Wade into Water’ was a drop-in family activity session held at Lakeside Arts Centre, featuring a series of challenges and games based on the exhibition ‘Water!’. Children caught magnetic fish out of a pond, which they swapped for a water-themed question. The answer was hidden somewhere in the exhibition, and there was a reward for all children who found the correct information.

Other activities on offer included join-the-dot puzzles, a ‘Find the Face’ activity using photos on the exhibition, and our take on the popular Snakes and Ladders game, ‘Divers and Eels’. Players threw the dice and climbed up divers’ air hoses or slid down eels. Squares with divers on also included information about ‘good’ things to do with the area’s water supply, whilst squares with eels included information about ‘bad’ water-related events. 

Following the popularity of our jigsaws last year, we had four different puzzles on offer, all wonderful black and white photographs taken of flooding Nottingham. They were popular with children and sparked a great deal of interest and reminiscing from the adults.

Playing ‘Divers and Eels’.

Jigsaws at Lakeside.

There was much more available to see and do on the day than can be covered here, and we received a great deal of positive feedback from visitors. Thank you to everyone who helped make it our most successful Mayfest to date, and we look forward to seeing you next year!

On Berlin’s “Victory Avenue” TASS Window 1236, created 12 May 1945

As Victory Day (Thursday 9 May) is marked across Europe, the celebratory sentiments of some of the Soviet propaganda posters featured in the online exhibition Windows on War, are still powerful, even though almost 70 years has passed since the war ended. The posters appeared almost daily in the windows of TASS, the Central Telegraph Agency in Moscow, the main news distributor during the Soviet period.

Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, and the war in Europe was over. A number of posters sum up the excitement of final victory and the assertion of Soviet power. One of the posters featured in the online exhibition, which appeared on the 12th May 1945, celebrates the arrival of the Red Army in Berlin on the 30th April 1945 (the very day of Hitler’s suicide). It depicts Hitler fleeing the Russian tanks, with toppled German statues declaring “Hitler is kaput”.

View the poster online in all its striking detail and read about the accompanying verse by Lebedev-Kumach, in which Berlin’s Victory Avenue is turned into Avenue Kaput, or ‘Avenue of the Broken’.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the University’s Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, Manuscripts and Special Collections and the Web Technologies team. It is curated by Cynthia Marsh, Emeritus Professor of Russian Drama and Literature.

Visit the exhibition at windowsonwar.nottingham.ac.uk/

Follow the exhibition on social media at:

• [Twitter] https://twitter.com/windowsonwar
• [Facebook] https://www.facebook.com/WindowsOnWar
• [Tumblr] http://windowsonwar.tumblr.com/
• [Flickr] http://www.flickr.com/photos/windowsonwar

Full image of the poster ‘Two Cauldrons’ (MS 281/1/53)

The TASS posters were created during the difficult war years between 1943-45, although production ran from 1941 to 1946. They are known as TASS posters because they were produced by the TASS News Agency. These propaganda posters were created each day to raise morale and inform the population about the war effort. Most are very large posters, some standing 2 metres high or more and would have been displayed in and outside significant public buildings throughout the Soviet Union. They were never intended to stand the test of time – just one day in fact! Their ephemeral nature makes their survival all the more remarkable.

It has been interesting during conservation to take a closer look at the apparent method of the posters’ manufacture. They were made in sections on several sheets of thin (0.16mm), poor quality wood pulp paper (there was a war going on, so presumably such commodities were hard to come by!). The central images were designed by prominent Russian artists and poets, first into a sketch, then into a finished art piece (Windows on War has more details of the artists/poets involved). The artwork was then broken down into many different coloured stencils, as one would for a screen print. Once this was done a relatively unskilled team could apply gouache paint of the correct colour through each stencil before passing the poster on to the next stenciler, until all the colours had been added. In this way they produced sometimes as many as 1200 posters a day! I don’t know if the posters were manufactured in this people-intensive way because printing was simply not available or too costly, or because this was the fastest way to get them made.

Detail from the poster ‘Doughnuts and bumps’ showing the original location markers used by the stencilers (MS 281/1/8)

Detail from ‘Two Cauldrons’ showing fingerprints of the stencilers (MS 281/1/53)

During my work on the posters I was excited to discover something that no one seems to have mentioned before. On many of the posters it is possible to find the original location markers that the stencilers used to line up the stencils correctly during production. These rectangular and triangular shapes would have been indispensable to the assembly of these complex posters. I thought it was also poignant to show some of the finger prints of the stencilers that are revealed in these hidden areas of the posters.  Of course, these markers and finger prints are invisible from the front of the posters. The assembly line method and the difficulty they would have had to stencil and handle posters at their actual full size, almost certainly explains why the posters were created in smaller, more manageable pieces. These component parts were then trimmed and pasted together to form a whole image. Perhaps also worthy of mention is that the posters were then trimmed again after they had been assembled. This was done in rough way, with the resultant shape being anything but square.

Full image and detail from ‘The Liberation of Rome’ showing some of the complexity of the stencils/colours (MS 281/1/45)

Given the obviously difficult times that these posters were created in, it is even harder to explain why the posters were created to such high artistic standards! I don’t mean in terms of the “naive” look created by occasional misaligned stencilling mistakes or non-matching colours, these merely add to the charm of the poster image and explain something of the structure. But what is hard to explain is the sheer number of stencils and colours used to make up any one of these posters – in fact so many were used that it is difficult to work the number. It has been noted that upwards of 60 stencils were employed to create some of the more complex posters! This is a staggering number of colours and tones, and this may answer an earlier question, why not print them? It would certainly be rare for any print to have this number of screens, so in this respect, perhaps these posters were considered to be more subtle and superior in quality to what could have been produced by printing. When you think that these posters were designed to be viewed from a distance, this attention to detail wouldn’t have been strictly speaking necessary. So, if I had to guess, I would say they were just trying to do the best job they could with what they had available.

Posters were folded into bundles, with some damage at the edges (MS 281/1/15)

Detail of MS 281/1/53, showing how thick some of the applied paint is.

The story of how the posters came to be at the University of Nottingham is no less intriguing, and is dealt with in more detail in ‘The Story’ section on the website. What we do know from their condition was that the posters had been stored folded up into small bundles and kept that way for a long time. As the posters were opened out, it was possible to see clearly that at the exposed bundle edges, the poor quality paper has become discoloured (mid-brown) and the inevitable breakdown of the paper along these folds has led to multiple paper fractures. Even with the very limited handling the posters have undergone, these weak areas have split further, especially where the (sometimes thick) paint layer is sitting on the embrittled paper.

Detail of MS 281/1/53, showing a tear along the embrittled paper, and following repair.

Another issue was that some sort of oil based ink has also been used on the text areas, and sometimes for the black areas within the central design itself too. There is some speculation that solvents (type unknown) were used to speed up the drying times of the poster inks. Looking at the posters there is certainly evidence to back up this theory, and it is clear that solvent has carried oil further into the paper substrate (these areas are particularly rigid and discoloured from the verso).

However, the lack of exposure of much of the paper and paint to atmospheric pollutants and light has meant that the colours are still remarkably vibrant, and on the whole the posters are intact!

Detail of ‘The Liberation of Rome’ showing the solvent tide line around one piece of text (MS 281/1/45)

Detail showing the vibrant colours (MS 281/1/53)

The Conservation of the posters

Two details of tears on MS 281/1/8 before and after repair.

I decided, in keeping with current principles on minimal intervention, that repair would be restricted to supporting these weak areas, and preventing further losses or tears opening up, whilst at the same time taking the opportunity to flatten out the creased and torn areas so that they were made as accessible for digitisation as possible. In the past, some of these posters have been digitised in their damaged state. So doing this conservation work now gave not only the best possible image, but also meant that the over-size posters were safer to handle throughout the digitisation process, and it is hoped that all the repairs will prevent further damage and loss occurring. I did consider a more interventive approach to the conservation treatment by fully lining and de-acidifying the posters. Lining would to some extent have covered over some of the important historical information on the verso of the documents, not to mention the incidental evidence of their manufacture (finger prints and location markers). De-acidification may still be considered at some time in the future, but wasn’t required to get the posters into a fit state for digitisation.

Detail of repair to MS 281/1/45

The paper was tested, and moisture didn’t appear to adversely affect the paper. However, I still decided that introducing more moisture than was strictly required to allow the paper to relax during the repair process was unnecessary. With this in mind repairs were carried out using a dry wheat starch paste and a strong light weight Japanese tissue. Another issue with the conservation of the posters is to do with their manufacture: they are made from separate sheets of paper, but little care was taken pasting and aligning them together, so they do not lie entirely flat. This was another reason why lining would have been difficult without separating the parts of each poster.

On a few occasions, lose material was re-inserted during the repair. This is a detail of MS 281/1/8 before, during and after repair.

Once conservation was completed the posters were digitised and then finally they were encapsulated in large polyester envelopes!

This guest post was written by Robert Pearce, Conservator at Manuscripts and Special Collections.

For information and updates, follow @windowsonwar or like us on Facebook.

Poster for the Weston Gallery Exhibition ‘Windows on War’

The success of the exhibition demonstrated that war posters and Soviet and Russian history held a lot of interest for the public. The posters are more than mere propaganda. The artists and poets who contributed to the making of them were familiar figures on the Soviet cultural scene, including the trio of satirical cartoonists “The Kukryniksy” and the children’s writer Samiul Marshak. Eye-catching as they are, the posters also contain subtle visual and written references relating to Russian history, culture and religion. The contributions of these artists and writers to the making of the posters underlines the importance that these items had for maintaining the momentum of the war effort in the Soviet Union; it was an all-consuming task. Moreover, the posters themselves are pure works of art, reflecting the level of skill of the artists and their ability to produce such art under huge amounts of pressure, with limited resources.

The exhibition also underlined the fragility of these items. They were always intended to be ephemeral and this has become increasingly apparent over the years. The paper is low-quality and many of the posters are separate pieces of paper stuck together;  due to the intense pressure on the printers, they would have to gather materials from wherever possible and make use of every last scrap. Although time has damaged the posters, time has also provided us with new technology which ensures that the collections can still be seen and enjoyed by the public. Following the digitisation of several of the posters for the Windows on War exhibition, Manuscripts and Special Collections has now digitised further posters for a new online exhibition to enable wider access to the collection. The high-quality images show the tiniest details, including brush strokes, the damage caused by time, and even mistakes made by the printers of the posters.

Online exhibition Windows on War

This online exhibition, also titled Windows on War, has brought together people from across a range of different disciplines at the University, including staff from Manuscripts and Special Collections, IT Services and the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies. While the creation of the digital resource has proved to be a challenging process, it has also illustrated how important these items are as historical and cultural artefacts. The online exhibition can be used as a resource by students or by members of the public who simply have an interest in these wonderful items. Either way, it ensures that the posters will be seen for many years to come.

This guest post was written by Laura Todd, Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies. Post-graduate researcher on the project.

Procession of students and staff leaving Nottingham Council House, prior to the ceremony installing the first Chancellor of The University of Nottingham. (NMc 6/4)

The role of Chancellor has changed considerably over the last 65 years, becoming less ceremonial and more ambassadorial as universities become increasingly competitive.

The University’s first Chancellor was John Campbell Boot (1889–1956), 2nd Baron Trent. In 1944, four years before it was granted university status, he had been appointed President of its predecessor University College, Nottingham. It was founded in the 1880s as a constituent college of the University of London. Becoming a university in its own right gave it more autonomy, including the power to award its own ‘University of Nottingham’ degrees.

John Campbell Boot was the grandson of John Boot, founder of the pharmacy Boots, and the son of Jesse Boot, who transformed the company into a national business. Jesse Boot was an important benefactor to both the City of Nottingham and the University, and the 2nd Baron Trent carried on the family tradition of philanthropy and maintained the strong ties to the University.

The photographs were taken at his installation as Chancellor on the 3^rd May 1949. They come from two different collections: ‘UMP - Photographs from The University of Nottingham and University College, Nottingham’ and ’NMc - Correspondence of Priscilla McLaren (née Bright, 1815-1906) social reformer, and Sir Henry Norman (1858-1939) journalist, politician and public servant, 1829-1946‘.

Photograph of Vice-Chancellor Bertrand Hallward proclaiming that the Council and Senate have resolved to confer on the Chancellor an honorary degree. (NMc 6/8)

Installation of John Campbell Boot, 2nd Baron Trent, as the 1st Chancellor of the new University of Nottingham, 3 May 1949, in the Albert Hall, Nottingham (UMP/2/2/6/6)

As well as the academic and administrative departments, many of the University’s clubs and societies collect photographs recording their activities, ranging from this type of grand occasion to everyday events. Some were taken by commercial photographers or newspapers, and some by the University’s own photographic unit. Since 1967, photographs and other records have been periodically transferred to Manuscripts and Special Collections. Added to this are photographs and other materials donated to us by former students and staff. These, and other university archives, are available to view in our Reading Room on Kings Meadow Campus.

Nottingham had been campaigning for a medical school since the 1940s but there was initially little wider support for the idea. That changed in the 1960s when a need to increase the number of doctors was identified. While existing medical schools were asked to expand in size and to increase the size of their intake the government also looked at establishing a totally new medical school. In July 1964 the Minister of Health announced that a new medical school and university hospital was to be established in Nottingham. This was to be the first new medical school established in the United Kingdom in the 20^th century. 

Part of plan showing Floor A of the Medical School

The archives of the University of Nottingham’s Medical School have recently been transferred to Manuscripts and Special Collections and a project has begun to catalogue them. Although still in the early stages the cataloguing has already brought to light many fascinating records in the history of the Medical School. Particularly well represented are records to do with the planning and building of the Medical School and University Hospital. Over 60 plans of the architects firm Building Design Partnership have been catalogued, showing the site of the complex and the layout of individual floors and departments. There are also a series of photographs showing the construction of the Queen’s Medical Centre, from the start through to completion.

The records of the Medical School will be available to view in the Manuscripts and Special Collections reading room once cataloguing has been completed. The University holds many other collections of hospital and health records and a guide to these is available on the Manuscripts and Special Collections website.

Street View of the Chinese Quarter in Victoria, Hong Kong, about 1860. Photo 15.

In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in exploring China’s history. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the Red Army obliterated much of the country’s heritage, including photographs. Keeping archives was a subversive act; it became dangerous even for people to be caught with their own family albums. Huge quantities of irreplaceable images were deliberately destroyed.

Very little survives today, and much of it is outside China. Many of the photos were taken by foreigners who lived and worked in China, and who took their albums home with them when they left.  Such is the case with our photographs of China in the Newcastle Collection.

Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5^th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, served as Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1859 and 1864, including the then-British colony of Hong Kong, China. Hong Kong was under British control from 1841 to 1997, with a brief interruption during WWII. Its location and deep natural harbour made it desirable as a trading post.

Among the Dukes of Newcastles’ political papers is a small photograph album entitled ‘Views in Hong Kong’.  The volume (Ne C 11121/1) containing 19, slightly faded, black and white photographs of bustling city life is undated, but other documents kept with it indicate a date of around 1860. The examples here are typical of the style and subject matter. All but one are landscapes and street scenes in and around Victoria.  The most frequently featured places are Victoria Harbour, various Government and military premises, Queens Road, and the Chinese Quarter. A smaller album (Ne C 11122) entitled ‘Views of Canton’ (Guangzhou) from around the same time has not been digitised but is available for consultation in Manuscripts and Special Collections.

View of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, around 1860, taken from the upper balcony of Government House. Photo 4.

Since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the Chinese government has sought to educate people about their country’s history. The heritage sector, especially museums, attracts enormous interest within China. Outside China, too, there has been a major increase in interest in China, with increasing trade links, a rise in the number of British schools teaching Mandarin and the opening of the University of Nottingham’s Ningbo Campus in 2004.

More photos from the ‘Views in Hong Kong’ album are available from our Historic Collections Online gallery. The Duke of Newcastle’s Colonial Office correspondence relating to Hong Kong and China can be found in our online catalogue. All items can be viewed in the Manuscripts & Special Collections Reading Room.

Requiem for a Turtle

Was it to win your steady race
You won your emerald and untimed finish?
Ambition, masochistic, beat the beast it rode,
Searching a luster time could not diminish,
Finding their appropriate place.

Sirena II: A selection of poetry. Front Cover.

Or did you cross your darkling road
Like the irrational chicken? Then dim desires
Of bluer lands across receded, weary, you knew,
In that eternity of oil and tires,
Redundant, imminent abode.

Generations have tried to make it new
Here, where the turtle’s voice is heard no more.
You, sudden phoenix of your local habitation,
Tried mutability, here, as before,
Untransmogrified, unblue.

Or wrought your shell this dislocation?
You thought it impervious, and died in error.
No turtle is an island. Perhaps you plumbed in the end,
Having the promise, sounding then the terror,
Complete, belated education.

You thought they’d stop? Never, my friend,
They never stop; they neither think nor feel-
You know machines. Though fortune’s fair have felt her spite
There’s one that still prevails, and that’s the wheel.
You chose a bitter bow to bend.

Rest easy turtle. Tender night
And flocks of angels rest your victor’s brow.
You, time’s best nonconformist, never changed your face,
But let them moil above you. Let them now,
And sleep in peace, defunct, but right.

Portrait of Professor Reginald Mainwaring Hewitt, Head of the Department of English, c.1928

It is taken from a volume entitled ‘Sirena II’ (East Midlands Collection pamphlet Not 5. N2 SIR), a selection of poems by staff and students of the University of Nottingham (and its predecessor, University College, Nottingham) written between 1928 and 1956. As the title suggests, this was the second volume of poetry published. Almost 30 years previously, the Head of the Department of English Professor Reginald M Hewitt (c.1887-1948) edited ‘Sirena’ (East Midlands Collection pamphlet Not 5.N2 SIR), a volume of poetry to mark the occasion of University College of Nottingham moving to new premises at what is today known as the University Park Campus of the University of Nottingham. ‘Sirena II’ is dedicated to the memory of Professor Hewitt. 

Melvin Plotinsky came to the University of Nottingham on a Fulbright Scholarship, and studied the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins for a year. After returning to the United States, he earned a law degree at the New York University School of Law before gaining a PhD in English from Harvard University in 1962. He taught English at Indiana University for over thirty years, until his retirement in 1997.

Manuscripts & Special Collections holds the institutional archives of The University of Nottingham and its predecessor, University College Nottingham, many of which can be accessed in the Reading Room. More early photographs of The University of Nottingham, its staff and students are available from our Historic Collections Online gallery.

It may seem strange for a University to have books of fairy tales, but one of our major holdings is the Briggs Collection of children’s educational games and literature from the mid 16th century-c.1850. Although the first collections of fairy tales began to appear in print in the 17^th century, they had existed in oral tradition for considerably longer.

This beautifully illustrated version of ‘The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood, Her Grandmamma, and the Wicked Wolf’ in the East Midlands Special Collection (EMSC Pamphlet Not 3.Y16 LIT) is neither ‘true’ nor is just a ‘story’; it’s also an advertising pamphlet for Coleman’s Mustard. Each page is accompanied by a full colour illustration, most of which feature a box of mustard peeking out of the basket Red Riding Hood carries. It is a simple re-telling of the classic story, in which Little Red Riding Hood encounters a wolf whilst walking through the woods to visit her ill grandmother, with sweet cakes and butter (which makes the addition of mustard all the more incongruous!). A woodcutter scares the wolf away, but not before he has tricked Red Riding Hood into revealing where she is going and why. The wolf runs ahead and eats her grandmother, dresses in the old lady’s bedclothes and waits for Red Riding Hood to arrive.

Just as they finish the traditional exchange of ‘what sharp teeth you have!’ and the wolf leaps out of bed to eat the little girl, the woodcutter arrives and kills the wolf. There are several different endings and in this version, the grandmother is not cut out of the wolf’s stomach, shaken but alive, but remains eaten. Little Red Riding Hood runs home to the safety of her mother’s house, she, and presumably the children reading the story, having learnt a valuable lesson about talking to strangers.

Variations of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ have been told throughout Europe for centuries, and it is still one of the most well-known fairy tales.  Time has been less kind to the early 19^th century tale ‘Julia Wentworth; or, the Fatal Effects of Folly and Disobedience’ (Briggs PZ6.2 J8). The titular Julia is a spoiled and headstrong girl, an only child raised by her father after her mother died in Julia’s infancy. She spent her childhood catching colds from wearing summer clothes in December, and suffering numerous other small misfortunes brought about by her stubborn nature. At the age of twenty she is courted by Mr Lumley, a handsome young man from a respectable background, but who is extravagant and lives far beyond his means. Julia’s father repeatedly warns her that he is only after her fortune, but she rejects all the good advice and marries Lumley, believing he genuinely loves her and that she can reform him.

Mr Wentworth disowns his only child, emotionally and financially. Lumley becomes increasingly cruel towards Julia as his gambling debts spiral. The couple are imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for debtors, as depicted in the image above. Raised in a house of comfort and plenty, Julia is miserable at the vice and degradation surrounding her in prison, but remains loyal to her husband throughout. When Lumley abandons her immediately after their release, she finally breaks down and cries bitterly at what her pride has cost her.

Victorian morality tales are never subtle, but readers expecting a children’s story to end happily ever after will be disappointed. A repentant Julia goes to visit her father seeking forgiveness, only for her carriage to be involved in an accident en route. She is admitted to the parish workhouse to recover, but suffers the “merited and inevitable consequences of perverseness and disobedience” and dies alone of a fever shortly thereafter.

These books are available to view in the Manuscripts & Special Collections Reading Room.

National Storytelling Week was established in 2000 to increase public awareness of the art, practice and value of oral storytelling. There are a number of events around the country which you can find out about from their website or by searching for the hashtags #storytelling and #UoNstories on  @sfs_uk  and @UniofNottingham.

A new exhibition, Water!, opened at the Weston Gallery, Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park on 25th January. It tells the story of how water resources have been harnessed and exploited, particularly within the city of Nottingham. The exhibition draws on a wealth of evidence in the water archives held by the University’s Manuscripts and Special Collections, and has been curated by assistant archivist Kathryn Summerwill.

On display in the gallery are photographs and pamphlets relating to the major civil engineering work involved in laying mains water pipes and sewers, and maintaining flood defences. Shown for the first time in public are a series of original plans of the temporary village of Birchinlee in the Peak District, built after 1902 for the workers employed in building the Howden Dam.

Flooding in Bulwell, 1960. Courtesy of the Nottingham Post Group

The central exhibition case contains photographs of the 1932 and 1947 floods in Nottingham, and plans and documents relating to the subsequent construction of the Nottingham Flood Prevention Scheme. Visitors can also find out about the School of Geography’s meteorological station in University Park, which closed in 1981, and see one of the rainfall gauges which was monitored every day by volunteers, whatever the weather!

From the Hatfield Chase Corporation which began draining marshy ground in north Nottinghamshire in the seventeenth century, to the Severn Trent Water Authority, which had responsibility for the entire water cycle in the Midlands in the 1970s and 1980s, the exhibition provides a glimpse into the extraordinarily wide variety of material held at the University, and a fascinating insight into the water infrastructure created by the Victorians and Edwardians, which is still the basis of Nottingham’s water supply today.

The exhibition will be open until Sunday 19^th May and a series of lunchtime talks are open to the public. If you want to know more about the exhibition or the historic collections that are held by the University, contact staff at Manuscripts and Special Collections at mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk.

Find out more!

• You can browse our Water Resources – a series of web pages all about the water archives held by the University.
• A series of photographs from the Trent River Authority’s Engineer’s Department have been digitised and are available on the Historic Collections Online resource on the Manuscripts and Special Collections website, under the heading ‘Landscape and Water Engineering’.
• Some of the collections have only recently been catalogued, with the support of The National Archives Cataloguing Grant Programme. Previous blog posts by project archivist Sarah Colborne document the progress of the Water Records project which finished last year.