The Waller collection was deposited at the County Record Office as a loan by Lady Viola Waller during the 1940s and 50s. It was put up for sale by her descendants in October 2005 and the County Record Office purchased the archive in 2007 with help from various funding bodies, local groups/organisations and individuals.
The Outside the Box project was created in order to coordinate the purchase, care and use of the collection and will run until the end of September 2009.
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 Characters from the collection escape from the box! Discover more about Mrs Mary Wise
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| Project aims |  | |
Conservation
- To clean and repair all documents in the collection
- To re-package and re-box them
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Cataloguing
- To improve accessibility to the collection with a more informative and easy to use catalogue.
- To catalogue previously un-catalogued items.
- To make items from the new catalogue available online. To help with this, a team of volunteers have been working from home to transcribe items from the collection, so that an easy to read, typescript version can accompany each image of an original document online.
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Events and Activities
- Use the Waller collection as a springboard for an innovative, creative and fun programme of activities and events.
- To reach out to new audiences.
- To raise the profile of archives in Warwickshire communities.
- To develop relationships with community groups interested in archives.
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| Forthcoming events & activities | | |
Workshops
There will be a choice of workshops including:
Getting to Grips with Old Handwriting
Getting to Grips with Deeds
WISE Walks
Guided walks around Priory Park in Warwick and the grounds of Woodcote House, Leek Wootton, both of which have links to the Waller family and their ancestors, the Wise family.
Medieval Festival
A Medieval Festival will take place in the early summer of 2009 in the grounds of the Warwickshire County Record Office to celebrate the Waller collection.
Travelling Exhibitions
Travelling exhibitions based around the collection will be visiting 30 venues in the Warwick area over the course of the project. Choice of themes for the exhibitions will be led by suggestions arising from discussion with user representatives, project partners and Record Office staff. Venues have yet to be confirmed and could include Care Homes, Community Centres, Libraries or Schools.
If you would like to find out more about the travelling exhibitions or have a venue to suggest please call Helen on 01926 738961
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| Working with Communities | | |
The Waller family had particularly strong links to the communities of Leek Wootton and Lillington, so the Outside the Box Project would like to work with these two communities in particular.
We have already established good links with members of both the Leek Wootton and Lillington communities and are keen to develop these further, with projects specific to each area and local activities based on the Waller collection.
The project will also be working to provide quality learning to school children in Leek Wootton and Lillington, beginning with a Super Learning Day at Leek Wootton All Saints School.
As well as work focusing on these two communities, the Outside the Box team will also be out and about in the Warwick area, giving talks and setting up travelling exhibitions.
If you would like to contact the team regarding their community work in Lillington, Leek Wootton or the Warwick area please call Alaina on 01926 738962. |