The National Archives - Kew
- Taryn
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Our group ventured out to the National Archives in Kew and met Head of Library, Cliff Van Dort. We split up into two groups and I was in the first group to get a tour of the reference stacks upstairs. This building opened in 1977, but a full consolidation of public records did not occur at this location until 1996. Interestingly, the old Public Records Office was in the Maughan Library, which we toured and is now part of the Strand Campus of King's College London.
Cliff discussed how the National Archives is a reference library for the public. He led us through the stacks that include such items as census, probate & wills, and monarchy indexes. He said that genealogists and family history researchers have been frequent users of the archives and that the archive has partnered with Ancestry.com to digitize millions of records.
I love Tudor history so it was thrilling to see indexes such as the ones pictured above for King Henry VIII and on the adjacent shelves that housed indexes for his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I. Following a tour of the reference stacks, Cliff took us to the Rare Books Room. That was an exciting room to see. He also informed us about how a volunteer stumbled upon a copy of the Declaration of Independence, which is the only known copy outside of the United States. It turns out that only about a third of the holdings of the archives are cataloged. So, they really do not know all that they have.
Following a lecture about the structure and operations of the National Archives, Cliff surprised us with the opportunity to engage with a table full of items from the Rare Books Room. So far on our site visits, we have not been permitted to touch anything and often are not allowed to take pictures. This was the first time we were allowed to handle any of the items and it was very exciting. The striking illustrations above were from a book by Joseph Strutt (1749-1802) called A Complete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England (1796-1799).
The most popular item with the our group seemed to be the Domesday Book or The Great Survey of England of William the Conqueror pictured above. Although this is an 1863 copy and not from 1086, Cliff discussed how the binding is rare, which makes it special. It was an absolutely beautiful piece of work combining brown morocco leather, blind stamping, and brass edges and corners. The print inside was also stunning and I specifically took a picture of the page with "REX" at the top because we enjoy "The Krewe of Rex" parade rolling in front of our house every year in New Orleans on Mardi Gras day.
After visiting the National Archives a few of us ventured to Richmond since it is next door to Kew, and crashed many of the Ted Lasso filming locations.
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