A View Across Time: Conserving the Arundell Manorial Court Rolls, 1331-1799
Project cost: £31,625
Grant award: £15,000
Sophie Coles, Archive Conservator and Naomi Oakley, Archivist, write: A notable land-owning family, the Arundells were granted the Wardour estates by Henry VIII, with the Manor of Tisbury awarded to Sir Thomas Arundell in 1540. The Arundells were a great landowning family reaching their greatest extent in the late 18th century, followed by bankruptcy.
The Arundell Court Rolls are parchment manuscripts containing valuable legal information about property ownership and rights, and insights into the day-to-day lives of the manorial tenants from 1331 to 1799. A rich source of social and economic history during this period, they also provide information of national historical significance, such as evidence of the impact of the Black Death on labour and social structure for the Manor of Tisbury.
Of the 125 parchment rolls, some with multiple pages, 20 were identified as severely deteriorated and at imminent risk. Without treatment they were in danger of total information loss and could not be handled without damage, so the information contained was unavailable to researchers.
The generous funding from the NMCT has enabled the archive conservator to buy time from her income generation requirements to focus on this project, providing a valuable opportunity for her to develop her skills in parchment conservation. Prior to the start of the conservation work, Sophie benefitted from a period at the Bodleian Library’s conservation department learning from colleagues there and practising the techniques. She is now treating the 20 most damaged rolls.
A second element of the project is the training and supervision of a group of Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre volunteers to surface clean and rehouse 66 of the parchment documents that are suitable for volunteer handling.
This project will make the rolls accessible for the first time since they were deposited and will protect them for the future. They will also be digitised so they can be made widely accessible.
