Flood, fire and pigeon poo: risks facing York's archive

Dr Julie-Ann Vickers, head of archive at Explore York Libraries and Archives, tells us about some of the challenges in caring for the city’s archives

CONSERVING York’s heritage is not just about restoring its beautiful medieval buildings and repairing the impressive historic walls; the city’s archives also need specialist physical care to ensure their long-term future.

Going out to assess potential deposits of archives is an exciting part of our work, but it is rarely glamorous. The collections in our care have remarkably chequered histories. Some have been cherished and protected prior to deposit, others have suffered periods of neglect (sometimes prolonged) before being transferred to our specialist store.

Records that have ceased to be of use to organisations or individuals generally end up in less-than-ideal storage, such as basements, attics, and sheds. Left in these places, sometimes for decades, the records can be exposed to damp, dirt, and a variety of insects and other wildlife. One of my first experiences of going out to assess an archive collection involved scraping off pigeon poo to access the records.

Some of our archives have come very close to destruction being deposited with us for safekeeping. Until the middle of the 18th century, the city’s historic civic records were kept in St William’s Chapel, a building which jutted out on to the River Ouse – not the driest storage facility in the city!

These records were subsequently moved to the basement of the Guildhall, where in 1892 they were thoroughly soaked during the great flood of that year. It was only through the swift action of the deputy town clerk, William Giles, that the city’s documentary heritage was not destroyed entirely.

St William's Chapel on the River Ouse - which once held the city's historic archive. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust: https://yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/: Public Domain

Giles went above and beyond the call of duty by spending the next 15 years painstakingly cleaning and repairing the records in his spare time. During this work he realised some of the records had been in a very poor state prior to the flood. He noted that for many years they had been “… gradually mouldering away…and it was but a question of time when they would have fallen to pieces and [been] lost altogether”.

Despite his efforts, Giles was not able to restore all the records. We still hold some archives that were so badly water damaged we cannot make them accessible to the public. We refer to them as the pappadams, due to their crinkly appearance, and keep them in the hope that emerging conservation technologies will allow to us to read them in future.

Fire has also affected the records in our care, but not in the way you might imagine. Rooms heated with fires and lit by candlelight, could leave a layer of soot on exposed records. Documents kept in Victorian solicitors’ offices are often very sooty, probably because of the way they were filed and then left undisturbed for long periods.

Sometimes, it’s just human error or accidents that have damaged the records. One of our archivists recently discovered a document with a strange luminous green stain eating through the paper. It is likely to be an ink spill, but we are currently seeking specialist advice on what it could be. Other problematic spills include tea, wine, coffee, and candle wax.

Our two central aims here in the archives service are access and preservation. To ensure people can see these records, now and in the future, we have to preserve them. But preserving nearly 900 years of historic records comes at a price. The conservation cost of repairing one plan, which was dirty and torn, came to £200.

This autumn at Explore, we are fundraising for the ongoing physical care of our archives. We will be selling beautiful Christmas cards featuring our collections and setting up a donation point at York Explore where you will be able to donate specifically towards the cost of conserving the archives.

You can also donate by clicking on this link: exploreyork.org.uk/support-us/giving

Find out more

For more old photos of York, please visit the Explore York archive images site: images.exploreyork.org.uk

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