Explore your Archive Week

Introducing Explore your Archive Week 

A couple of weeks ago it was Explore your Archive Week. Jointly delivered by The National Archives and The Archives and Records Association, it aims to showcase the unique potential of archives to excite people, bring communities together, and tell amazing stories. With great anticipation, we headed to Exeter Cathedral Library and Archives to meet its archivist, Ellie Jones to find out more. We were not disappointed…

Exploring the archives at Exeter Cathedral 

Once we had safely arrived, Ellie jumped in straight away with an introduction to archives and libraries and the differences between them in the Interpretation Gallery. There has been a library attached to the cathedral since the eleventh century when Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, presented the cathedral with around sixty books, including the famous Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis.  This is undoubtedly one of the finest surviving literature codices of the Anglo-Saxon period, containing famous poems such as The Wanderer; The Seafarer; and the Ruin, as well as its famous collection of Old English riddles.

Though we didn’t get to see the Exeter Book itself, we were very privileged to have access to many items within the archive. In our tour of the new book repository in the back, complete with rolling stacks, we were able to see an example of a ‘Vinegar Bible’ - so named for the printing error in in the chapter heading for Luke 20. Instead of it correctly reading, "The Parable of the Vineyard”, it reads "The Parable of the Vinegar". It was absolutely enormous - check out Elvie’s hand below for a sense of its size. 

We also saw a thirteenth-century will; a sixteenth-century almanac which has only survived due to it being used as the lining of a box and local planning records for car-parks from the 1980s. It’s important to remember that the archive is not a museum where you can see rare and exciting items from a bygone era (lovely as that is), but a working, breathing repository that is an invaluable resource for the local area to which documents are constantly being added. And even that definition is not wholly accurate. There are various miscellaneous items which are not documents that find their way into archives. For example, the cathedral archives are in possession of a number of small wax figurines from the Middle Ages which had been deposited in the roof of the cathedral by pilgrims and found only when bombs fell on the cathedral during the Baedeker Raids of 1942. This is not dissimilar to the Maynard’s own archives run by Miss Ellis, which houses its own miscellanea including old uniform, school cups and the sign from the old boarding house which also fell victim to the German raids seventy years ago. We found the repository rather chilly and so did not tarry. Ellie explained that it is meant to be this way to preserve the documents.

We were nonetheless pleased to be back in the warm glow of the Reading Room where Ellie had got out a number of original documents that she thought that we might like to see. She wasn’t wrong – they were absolutely marvellous! These included two Anglo-Saxon Charters (one spurious Athelstan one and one from the reign of Cnut showing Harold Godwinson’s father on the witness list); a seventeenth century Royal Charter from the reign of William and Mary and a very charming Edwardian scrapbook of the cathedral, which was donated recently by a Dutch tourist on holiday to the area (the scrapbook had been made by her English grandmother). Though we managed to ask quite a lot of questions, our time with Ellie came to an end too quickly. Clutching our sandwiches and our Explore your Archive Week badges we ran back to school in the rain ready for afternoon lessons.

We would like to thank Ellie very much for hosting us. We had a brilliant time and hope to return at some point next term to see the wonderful Exeter Book itself (thanks Ellie!).

Visiting the Interpretation Gallery

As mentioned above, there is a fantastic Interpretation Gallery as you walk into the Library and Archives Building where you can get a glimpse of some of the fascinating items looked after by Ellie. Next time you are in the area, you should take half an hour to check it out. Open Monday-Friday, 10:00-16:00 – according to the website here.

Coming Soon...

Term is coming to an end and so are our first projects… blog posts are being fastidiously prepared and photos selected. The first finalized posts should be available by the end of the month!