David Morse, Vice-Chair and Archivist describes the work done so far.
Nearly four years ago I was asked to have a look at the current Archive, for what it was worth, to see if it could be updated and integrated into, or at least developed alongside, the website that also needed some updating.
We had lost a large chunk of records of all sorts when the fire took hold of Bath Place where it was being stored.
A first look at the collection of digital images showed that there was going to be a lot of work needed just to put them into some sort of logical order. The first count I did amounted to around 7,500 images. I considered that the best order that I could put them in was by street/road order. This I slowly did, finding duplicates and weeding them out by selecting the best version. At present there are about 170 street/place names.
One area that had to be considered were those locations outside of the boundary of Royal Leamington Spa which created around 130 villages or towns or just locations.
All the while though more images were cropping up via the usual sources with specialist sections such as Maps being put aside for now (whenever “for now” is!).
So, we went from around 7,500 images down to around 3,500, and at the moment the loaded figure stands at 4387 items. Attached to main locations of interest such as the Town Hall is a brief timeline of its history with a link to our general Website.
An important issue is that the archive should be easily searchable.
Via an Alphabet system place names can be accessed within the Archive.
Via picture/title system subjects can be accessed.
Those two links open all of the current Archive to anyone around the world.
The Archive will be launched at the Heritage Day in the Parish Church on 12th September 2026
But that is not all. Since February 2026 we have obtained through purchase or gift something in the region of 4,000 photographs, postcards or slides that will need to be checked against what we already have and then copied and integrated into the Archive.
And so, our work is far from finished!
David G.P. Morse
August 2026
