Archive Horrors!

It’s nearly Halloween, and here at Cheshire Record Office we have lots of archives and local studies material about witches and ghosts. But spooks and ghouls are not the only things to beware of – there is plenty in the day job of looking after archives that can give us nightmares. Read on to see seven scary scenarios! 

Pen 

The search room at Cheshire Record Office is strictly Pencil Only, to avoid accidental damage to our archives and local studies material. Even neat pen marks will bleed through paper over time - this can be seen on a heavily marked notebook from the 1630s, where red pen was used to make notes. Ink is difficult to remove - sometimes impossible - so pens must stay locked away! 

Sticky tape 

Sticky tape doesn’t age well – it can discolour and degrade paper. Our Conservators removed a huge amount of tape from these newly deposited documents before storing them. It will help prevent future damage so the documents can be preserved for longer. 

Dust and Dirt 

Some of our collections have been stored in less-than-ideal conditions before reaching us. You certainly need a pair of gloves sometimes – to protect your hands, as well as the documents! This Sheriffs' File from the 18th century is covered in sooty surface dirt and is in very poor condition. Removing the dust and dirt is an important first step in conservation: it not only makes the documents difficult to read but can also be abrasive and acidic, and cause damage to the paper. Worse still, it can be a source of food for insects and encourage mould growth. Yikes! The documents below were similar, but have had a visit to our conservation studio where they've been cleaned and repaired. 

Water 

All our documents are carefully packaged before being stored, and environmental conditions in our strong rooms are monitored regularly. But before arriving at Cheshire Record Office, these documents were damaged when a heavy downpour caused a drain to fail, resulting in a basement flood. Parchment and water do not mix. You can see below that extensive flood damage has caused the parchment - which is made from animal skin and mostly formed of gelatine - to turn glue-like when wet, and as it has dried the pages have stuck together. They were unfortunately beyond repair. 

Destruction of documents 

Many people have a fear of mice and rats, but our furry friends (or enemies!) are definitely frightening for archivists and conservators. Centuries-old paper must make a tasty snack or nest-lining, and rodents can have a devastating effect on archives if they get hold of them. 

The damage to this 1882 Rate Book was caused by water after a flood in a basement, the perfect environment for mould to grow. But if mould damage wasn’t bad enough, some little critters, thought to have been mice, have gorged on the paper and it is now sadly beyond repair. (NB – the damage occurred before the document arrived at Cheshire Archives!) If not treated promptly, mould spores can spread and wreak havoc on old documents. And other little pests like bookworms, silverfish and booklice can cause plenty of damage too.  It may look cute, but the 'bookworm' (actually the larvae of the Varied Carpet Beetle, known as the Woolly Bear) is responsible for the patterns on the pages here.

Missing documents

Storing archives carefully isn’t just to protect them from animals and environmental damage. Imagine what would happen if you took out a document but didn’t put it back properly? If we take an item out of storage (and remember our documents are stored on around 11 kilometres of shelving!) we use a strict tracking system to look after it. Triple carbon slips are filled in with the document reference number, its location, and when and by whom it has been moved. 

The pink layer must stay with the document, whether it is going to our search room to be viewed by a member of the public; used by a staff member for research or copying; or being treated in our conservation studio. The yellow layer remains in the storage box, and the white copy can be taken away by the person using it. When the item is returned, the pink and yellow slips must match, and are put back together and recorded. Accuracy is paramount, and only very occasionally do we get the shock of finding a yellow slip in a box instead of a document. 

Rest assured that at Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, we take extremely good care of the documents entrusted to us. Our strict tracking system means missing documents are very rare. 

Techniques from the past 

Our Archivists and Conservators do an excellent job of preserving and conserving the documents in our care. But archives trends and techniques have changed over time, and what is seen as best practice now can be quite different from what used to happen. Two sets of documents sadly spring to mind to illustrate this. 

The first is a pamphlet from the English Civil War, dated 1642, but it’s covered in 20th century ink stamps from the library where it used to be kept. It is obviously important to catalogue and label archives material but nowadays a soft pencil is used instead. 

This is an original letter from King Charles I to the Mayor of Chester, also written in 1642 (ref: DCC 47/41). The letters and other records in this collection have all been glued onto mounts – aargh! This happened in the 1950s and it certainly wouldn’t be stored in this way today. 

And whilst we’re sure whoever laminated these asylum records intended to preserve them, these days the documents would be stored differently. They’d be kept acid-free folders and, if additional protection was needed, they’d only ever be sleeved in non-plastic removable pockets. They’d never be sealed in. You can see from this image that laminated documents are difficult to photograph too! 

These are our seven scariest scenarios when working with archives. If you’d like to read about the witches, ghosts and Halloween customs of Cheshire – even a story of mummification – click here to read our 2019 blog: Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

With 31^st October fast approaching, we have unearthed some Halloween-related records from Cheshire Archives and Local Studies.  From accounts of witches, ghosts and mummification to old Halloween customs, here are just a few examples of spooky goings-on from Cheshire’s past.

One of Cheshire’s most famous witches was Bridget Bostock who became known as ‘The White Witch of Coppenhall’ in the 1740s.  She was known to cure ills and cast out devils by a combination of prayer and magic – the latter effectively being the use of her own saliva!  Reports of her healing abilities made the London press, and many people’s accounts of her activities feature in our Local Studies collection, such as this extract from a letter to the Whitehall Evening Post in 1748:

"Old Bridget Bostock…hath, in her life-time, made it her business to cure the country-folks, her neighbours, of sore legs, and other disorders; but her reputation now seems so wonderfully to increase, that people come to her from far and near…She cures the blind, the deaf, the lame of all sorts, the rheumatic, King’s evil [scrofula], histeric fits, falling fits, shortness of breath, dropsy, palsy, leprosy, cancers, and, in short, almost every things, except the French disease [syphilis], which she will not meddle with, and all the means she uses for cure is, only stroking with her fasting spittle, and praying for them.” 

The letter claimed that between six and seven hundred people a day were seen by her; “some people grow well while in the house, others on the road home; and, it is said, none miss”.


We also have accounts of witches who were said to have done evil, with examples of prosecutions of so-called witches contained in church court records.  The Consistory Court was responsible for the moral welfare of citizens and was held in Chester Cathedral.  Our Consistory Court archives include a 1627 Tarporley libel case of an Emma Mosse being accused of “practising witch craft and making potions” (reference EDC 5/1627/62); another case where a John Ramsden of Newchurch claimed a witch “did witch my cow to death” (ref: EDC 5/1613/66); and at Nantwich in 1662, an Anna Wright was accused of killing a child by witchcraft, with the rather gruesome description that "her eyes hanged over her cheeks and sometimes would play on her forehead and sometimes up and down on her face like two bladders." (ref: EDC 5/1662/63). 


Cheshire Archives holds coroners’ inquest files dating back to the fifteenth century, and includes one relating to Elizabeth Powell, a widow.  She died from various ailments after a long period of detention: she spent the last six years of her life a prisoner in Northgate, Chester, on a charge of witchcraft. 

Back in the seventeenth century, those convicted of witchcraft could be subject to capital punishment, and a register from St Mary on the Hill Church records the burial of ‘three witches’ executed at the Michaelmas Assizes in Chester in 1656.  According to a book in our Local Studies collection, (Death in Chester by Roy Wilding, ref: 217345) Ellen Beech and Anne Osboston of Rainow, and Anne Thornton of Eaton, all pleaded not guilty, but were sentenced to be hanged by the neck.  St Mary’s was close to Chester Castle, only separated by a deep ditch, so it was used as the burial place of prisoners condemned to death at assizes held at the castle.  The burial register also records some other gruesome deaths, such as those caused by the torture of ‘pressing’.

Some executed prisoners are said to be amongst Chester’s many ghosts, reputedly haunting everywhere from the city’s streets to houses, churches to pubs - but our Local Studies collection covers tales of ghosts, witches, myths and legends from all across the county.  You can read about The Congleton Cannibal, The Seven Sisters Curse and The Headless Woman of Tarvin, to name only a few! (In Myths and Legends of Cheshire by Paula Manley, ref: 228056)

There are several books about Cheshire customs, including traditional ‘Mummers’ Plays’ which have taken place across the UK and beyond for centuries.  In Cheshire they were known as ‘Soul-Caking Plays’ and took place on All Souls Day, just after Halloween.  We have many archive items on this subject, such as play scrips and numerous photographs of soul-cakers in Halton around 1885 (ref: D5154/124), and in Antrobus from the 1920s to the 1950s (ref: D5154/119), but this photograph - complete with masked man and headless woman – shows a scene from a pageant play written by the Vicar of Tarvin, the Rev. Maurice Hill Ridgway, in the 1930s. 

Our collection of his papers also includes a newspaper clipping of this scene marked ‘Echo’ (possibly the Cheshire Echo newspaper) with the caption “Mrs Bracegirdle fainting into the arms of Mr Ebenezer Bracegirdle on seeing the ghost of the headless woman – a scene in the pageant-play, ‘The Haunted House – Perhaps!’, written by the Vicar of Tarvin, the Rev. M. H. Ridgway, and which is based on a local ghost legend.”  

Not all of our gruesome stories are myths, however.  We hold a large collection of newspapers, some going back centuries, in which there are many unusual stories such as reports of a mummification in the 1920s.  Under the headline “Amazing Discovery at Nantwich”, the Chester Chronicle of 27 March 1926 reported that a Crewe auctioneer, acting under a county court bankruptcy order, had to force entry into the house of a mother and three daughters after all other means of gaining access had failed.  The mother was last seen years earlier, and the daughters lived as recluses.  The auctioneer discovered a skeleton wrapped in paper and old rags, and a table set out with food.  He was told, “that is God’s table, and is for mother” and warned not to enter another room as there was “fire and brimstone” inside.  All rooms apart from the kitchen were locked up, and the sisters said that they lived in the kitchen with their deceased mother.  They were reported to have been “certified insane”, believed to be suffering from a religious mania, and taken to the county asylum in Chester.  A doctor at the inquest stated that Mrs Nixon’s body was found in a sitting position on a tilted chair, tied with a cloth belt.  It was completely mummified.  

Finally, on a happier note, we have an account of a Cheshire man’s experience of Halloween customs in America.  Cheshire Record Office holds the papers of Frederick William Latham from Crewe, the son of a railway clerk who was put through college in the USA by a wealth uncle based in Mexico.  The letters he sent home to his parents include the following description from November 1927 of Halloween activities in the USA:

“they celebrate Halloween here with a great procession and everyone wears fancy dress and carries coloured flares – the ‘do’ is at night…it was a lovely sight and a lot of people buy pumpkins, scoop the inside out, and then cut eyes, nose and mouth in it and put a candle inside; they get some weird effects.” 

We wish you a Happy Halloween!

All of these items and more are available to view at Cheshire Record Office in Chester.