Know Your Place – A year in the making
September 2018 will see the fifth Know Your Place heritage festival, and whilst the festival is on for one month, it takes all-year-round planning to get it…
Follow the Drum: Christmas 1917
Springbok Blue December 1917 To celebrate Christmas one hundred years ago in 1917, it was necessary for people to dig deep within their own personal reserves of strength as the…
Follow the Drum: South African Military Hospital
Leading the way The special collection of materials available in the Local Studies Library & Archive provides a unique insight into the ground-breaking treatments and therapies that were available to…
Archive Explorers 2017
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to explore deep into an archive, traversing historical documents to discover what life was like in the past? That’s precisely what…
Follow the Drum: Life’s Essentials
Patricia Moloney, Local Studies Assistant, considers the problems caused by food shortages in everyday life for the local community during the crisis caused by the First World War. Local Authorities…
Leigh’s ‘Panorama of the Thames’
This magnificent panorama was published by Samuel Leigh in 1829, titled ‘The Panorama of the Thames from London to Richmond, Exhibiting every Object on both Banks of the River, with…
Follow the Drum: Christmas 1916
Christmas 1916. The third Christmas of the War. In this article we consider daily life in the Borough at the time of the third Christmas of the War. It was…
Follow the Drum: Bernard Freyberg VC
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour… Peace by Rupert Brooke, 1914) Patricia Moloney, Heritage Assistant, considers the life of Bernard Freyberg, renowned military leader who counted…
Follow the Drum: The South African Presence
Patricia Moloney, Heritage Assistant, takes a look at the impact of the increasingly international military presence in Richmond during the Great War. The town was assuming a cosmopolitan character as…
Timeless and enduring: the Dora Lewis letters
Patricia Moloney, Heritage Assistant, reflects on and describes the experience of cataloguing this fascinating collection of letters for Richmond upon Thames Local Studies Library & Archive. Background The latest archival…