Thoroughly Modern Manor
August 30, 2022
At first glance the village of Laxton in north Nottinghamshire does not appear unusual. A few miles from the A1, it is surrounded by farmland and has been inhabited for at least 1000 years. It is estimated from Domesday Book that Laxton may have been home to 120 people in 1086. The population was around …
All Manor of People: everyday life in Newark Court Rolls
August 10, 2022
It’s very common to dismiss manorial documents as only relating to the lords and ladies of the manor, with very little to do with the lives of ordinary men and women. In fact the documents are often packed full of information about the daily goings-on in villages and small towns, much of which was reported …
Meet the Manorial Records!
July 26, 2022
The University of Nottingham is hosting the Manorial Document Register Conference in September, along with The National Archives, and this is the perfect opportunity to talk about one of the most useful collections that researchers find most intimidating: manorial records. Mind your Manors What does the word ‘manor’ conjure up in your imagination? Grand country …
Matt Marks archive collection: ‘The Bridge’ and how it came to be
July 21, 2022
This is a guest post by Aldea Toth, 2nd year English undergraduate at UoN who completed a student placement working on the archive of Matt Marks. When I was volunteering at the Manuscripts and Special Collections Department, I had the pleasure of archiving the works of the late Matt Marks, who was once a student …
Remote volunteering: tackling transcriptions
July 11, 2022
This is a guest post by Manuscripts and Special Collections volunteer, Emily Williams, who worked with digitised versions of analogue recordings for a remote placement devised especially for providing careers experience when we were unable to host volunteers in our reading room. Commencing in the summer of 2020, I was given the opportunity to complete …
Sealed Knot
July 1, 2022
This is a guest post by George Davis, 3rd year undergraduate at UoN. As a Third-Year History student, working on the Sealed Knot collection has been a brilliant opportunity to learn more about archiving and experience working directly with primary material. My role was to work my way through each document in the collection, create …
Fungi and friendship: Margaret Cavendish-Bentinck, 2nd Duchess of Portland
June 21, 2022
This is a guest post written by UoN MA English Literature student Eve Campbell. Deciphering and researching the letters of Margaret Cavendish-Bentinck, 2nd Duchess of Portland (1715-1785), has been an insightful and rewarding experience and has allowed me to learn about different roles at Manuscripts and Special Collections. My placement required me to read through …
Last Orders at the Weston Gallery
June 7, 2022
This is a guest post by Dr David Beckingham, co-curator of the Last Orders exhibition, which opens at the Weston Gallery, Lakeside Arts in June. Last Orders examines cultures of alcohol consumption and abstinence in the East Midlands, with a particular focus on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ubiquitous though pubs and drink may have …
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
June 2, 2022
On 2nd June 1953, Princess Elizabeth of York was crowned Queen Elizabeth II. She had ascended the throne on 6 February the previous year, when her father George VI died after a long period of ill-health. She was 25 when crowned; now, at the age of 96, she has reigned for 70 years and is both …
Prose Responses to Editing DH Lawrence
May 20, 2022
On 5 May 2022, 14 writers from the Writer Highway group, led by Cathy Grindrod, were invited to respond to our exhibition Editing DH Lawrence. Here are the prose responses, check our other blog-post for poetic responses! D.H. Lawrence Exhibition, Lakeside by Bobbie Prime [including 4 poems by DH Lawrence] The exhibition revealed how hypocritical …
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