Gary Brannan (Access Archivist and formerly Archives Trainee 2004-5)
I was just 21 (horrifically young, with a taste in fleeces
and baggy cargo trousers – it was the early 2000’s, we did things differently
there) when I arrived at the Borthwick Institute for Historical Research at the
start of a warm September in 2004.
I was the new Archives Trainee, and I was nervous. St.
Anthony’s Hall on Peasholme Green, York, was somewhere where I had spent a few
happy months researching my undergraduate dissertation the previous summer, and
during that period something had got under my skin that had made me come back.
I knew that I was starting at a pivotal time in the
Borthwick’s history. The Institute, as the sign on the door reminded me, was
closed, about to move to brand new premises on the Heslington campus.
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| Well, that's me told. |
It’s strange to think that it’s just about 10 years today since the
first documents were carried from the old building to the new. The moving process
had started in early October with the move of a lot of furniture and library stock, but
the 15th October 2004 was the last day for the collections at St.
Anthony’s. Monday 18th was The Day the Documents Moved. And they
didn’t stop moving for well over a month and a bit, to 2 miles of new shiny
shelving.
I was there that day, with my tiny digital camera - a very
small (but at the time, really quite cool) item– hence the quality (or lack of)
of the images. The camera didn’t have a flash and had a ridiculously long
exposure, so a steady hand - and subject – was required, especially when
shooting in low light levels. Really, the lens and processing in the camera
will now be beaten by the cheapest smartphone – but I’ll wager that they don’t
come with a cool like LCD screen you can slide over the viewfinder!
Obviously,
22-year-old-me was a bit snap happy, but the images below give a flavour
of that heady time, of the old Borthwick, its creaking floors, draughty
windows, beams soaked in history, and mysterious, untraceable
footsteps in the distance.
Lots of people were taking photos at the time, so I’m sure
over the next few months of other photographs will emerge, but these images
mean a lot to me. For once thing, they mark the start of my journey in this
career.
10 years later I’m back as Access Archivist, and it’s really
quite an odd experience - as an Archivist – looking back on the images. Day to
day I’m dealing with our medieval collections dating back to the 11th
century, but the images I made then remind me that we’re all making, shaping
and recording our personal life stories and sometimes, it’s fun to look back –
before looking forward.
The images below are only a small part of our story - you can find much more on our website
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| The Hall - full of boxes as part of the packing up process! |
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| The view through the cage door into the bottom of strongroom 1 |
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| The downstairs of strongroom 1 - all our parish collections ready to go |
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| The see-through floor, which I never really got the hang of... |
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| Map storage |
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| Conservation, pretty much all packed up and ready to go... |
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| The courtyard, accessible only by a very narrow passageway to the right |
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| And there she lies - the searchrooms were the line of windows facing the camera! |
Best of luck for the next ten years.
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