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Image from Durham Record Office, Victor Pasmore archive collection, shows a child looking out of Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion (1969), Oakerside Drive, south west Peterlee.
Selected images from ‘Redditch the Hub of England’ brochure, held at Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.
Clockwise: images 1-4 , highlighting industry, car manufacturing , local heritage and natural history, maps of new transport infrastructure, leisure activities and details of house typologies and tenure mix; image 5 - black and white high level photograph of the Woodrow neighbourhood shopping precinct in Redditch
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about the project
The New Jerusalems project is making accessible for the first time, archives from eleven post-war New Towns in England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. It will create a fundamental change in the evidence base available for research into the New Towns movement. This is achieved through the support of the Wellcome Trust, that has awarded a £420K grant. The New Town movement emerged from period of darkness and conflict that had engulfed Europe. New Towns were a key part of the 'New Jerusalem' - a completely new and radical approach to housing, town planning, social welfare, employment, the countryside, the NHS and education. There are parallels with our own times, rather than reverting to how things were before, to Build Back Better. As longer-term implications of Covid-19 for urban areas becomes apparent, valuable lessons can be drawn from post-war New Towns. There has been increased attention since 2020 in the urban design qualities of post-war New Towns. These include:
Generous public parks and other green spaces
The 20-minute neighbourhood - where you can meet daily needs nearby
Cycle routes - enabling active travel
Public and community art – supporting a sense of place
The New Jerusalems project will unlock a significant new resource, for all those interested in the connections between housing, urban design and public health. These archives are being catalogued and their future secured through conservation and preservation work. The New Towns included are: Basildon, Bracknell, Crawley, Cwmbran, Newton Aycliffe, Peterlee, Redditch, Runcorn, Shannon, Stevenage and Warrington.
What will the archivists be doing ?
The role of an archivist is crucial to preserving historic records. The archivists working on the New Jerusalems project will be cataloguing and making accessible thousands of records documenting the history of the new towns. They will contribute to research guides and most will undertake the digitisation of thousands of photographs. But have you wondered how they will do all this? Perhaps you already know what a catalogue is or may have even visited an archive before, but a lot happens behind the scenes. Archivists utilise an arsenal of skills when processing a collection of records. To find out more, click on the link here.
Image from University of Limerick, Town Planners reviewing a model of an industrial building.
