Archive

Since beginning work on cataloguing early this year my team of archive volunteers have been meticulously and systematically going through the boxes, listing their contents and making notes on all the interesting things they have found – from the obvious (such as production notes, progammes, and architect’s plans) to the unexpected. One such item in the latter category caught the eye of one of the volunteers to such an extent that he felt inspired to write about it. Intrigued? Read on!
One of the joys of helping to catalogue the Wilton’s archive is that you do not know what the next box will reveal.

Among the paper and photographs are some other objects, including a small pewter tankard. We are fortunate as well to have its story, in the form of a letter.

The tankard was found in the 1930’s during building works by a Methodist Church steward. Remarkably he rescued it as he was sure it had been used in the Music Hall Mahogany Bar. Some 70 years later, in 2007, his widow decided it should return “where it belonged rather than be discarded”.

To me, at barely half pint size it is smaller and more delicate than I would have imagined. Like Wilton’s itself it has been thought lost and discarded. It took enthusiastic individuals to keep it safe until better times. Now it is a tangible link to the past – a gutsy survivor against the odds.

Keith White, Archive Volunteer, October 2014