About the Barbican Archive

Background

The Barbican Archive is a collection of historic photographs of life in the area over the past century, as well as audio-taped reminiscences of local residents and other related material. The recordings tell the real life stories of Barbican families at the turn of the century and their everyday lives as fishermen.

The collection was originally gathered together during the early 1990s by a community worker at the Virginia House settlement in Plymouth. The archive was given to the library service for safe keeping and is now in the Central Library.

The Barbican Archive will be of interest to people currently living and working in the area and has national and international significance regarding the history of the fishing industry.

The project

All of the material had previously been used in a variety of exhibitions and as a result some of the items were damaged and needed conservation.

We received £28,800 from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005. With this grant we have been able to carry out restoration work on the photographs and create CDs of the recordings in the collection.

In the first two years of the project we have:

• conserved the photographs, they are now stored so they will not be damaged further
• added the collection to our library catalogue making them searchable via the web
• made the photographs available for the public to enjoy
• created CDs from the reminiscences tapes
• published a selection of the material on the internet
• created fifteen new recordings of local people

The future

Over the final year we plan a number of activities, which will help people to discover and enjoy the collection.

If you want to know more about our plans or would like to get involved in the project please contact the Central Library.