Twelve people attended an "Explore the Past" tour at The Hive, Worcester, organised by Shirley Tutton. The group started with the Historic Environment Record, and Teigan, who led the session, was excellent. She had preloaded the page for Badsey on the computer and dealt with all the queries knowledgably and efficiently. These included the circular features in Jane Neill's garden (visible on Lidar), the whereabouts of wells in Aldington (pumps visible on 1812 Enclosure Map), ridge and furrow markings in Wickhamford (Lidar), features at Pear Tree Fields and in Badsey churchyard, both Lidar. This took 45 minutes, so Carol, who was leading the tour, took the group quickly past the finds' cleaning and storage to meet the conservator, Rhoda, who was working on a large cartoon of the Nativity from the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart and Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Droitwich. Rhoda showed how she cleans paintings and talked about her job. The tour ended with a visit to a strong room containing William Shakespeare's marriage bond, documents going back to the reign of King Stephen, and a very amusing letter from an American passenger on the Titanic detailing the behaviour of some of the women on board!
The tour finished at lunchtime, after which some people returned to look at the HER in more detail or to visit the Archive to do some research.
