Stamford Mercury archive welcomes visitors for Lincolnshire heritage open days

The Stamford Mercury archive is welcoming new visitors to look around, view historic copies of Stamford’s first newspaper and listen to presentations about both the town and the paper's history.

The heritage open days, which ran on Friday last week (September 13) and yesterday (September 17) included a presentation on the background of the schools of Stamford, the 1839 final Bull Run and 'wife selling'. The final sessions take place tomorrow (September 19) at 10.30-11.30am, 12-1pm and 2-3pm.

After each session, visitors are able to read the original articles describing these topics.

After obtaining a grant of £305,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for conservation and long-term management, the newspapers have been rehoused onto inert metal shelves and stored in special archival boxes.

They have also been copied on to microfilm to help fight off the effects of time, dust and mishandling.

Copies of other historic local newspapers such as The Boston Gazette, Drakard’s Stamford News and the Stamford and Rutland Guardian can also be found in the archive.

The archive can be found in Cherrryholt House, Cherryholt Road, Stamford PE9 2EP. To organise a visit or to volunteer at the archive, email: enquiries@smarchive.org.uk

To learn more about the Stamford Mercury archive, click here.