Members of the Book Club, plus a few husbands and friends, visited the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in the bowels of County Hall, Aylesbury. All sorts of documents and records relating to Bucks are held there, the oldest dating back to the 13th century: maps, quarter session records, parish registers, title deeds as well as a local studies library. Next to the 5 strong rooms there are banks of computers for genealogical research as well as microfiche readers – the ancient along side the modern!

At our request the archivists had rooted out lots of information relating to Cublington; we were allowed to handle the church register of baptisms, marriages and burials from 1566 (no thick white gloves like on the telly!). The life events of “Dissenters”, ie not C of E, were inscribed at the back. There were school report books written in beautiful copperplate; the headmaster had recorded a child being sent home for having “filthy hands” and the school being closed on more than one occasion for blackberrying. A more recent marriage register ending in 1991 featured many familiar names and a printed leaflet reported on a meeting of the Friendly Society, held in the Unicorn over 200 years ago, but “no liquor”was to be requested in the course of the meeting!

The Centre is open to the public from Tuesday to Thursday and there is a open day on Saturday 25th November where several history groups will be getting together. For anyone with an interest in history or local studies, I’d thoroughly recommend a visit. We certainly enjoyed it.
Find out more at www.buckscc.gov.uk/archives
Chris Jones