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Kent has hundreds of historic areas and communities and
the Archives Service has strong links with many of these, helping
them not only to look after their own collections but also to
research their communities using our collections. We can give
advice on all aspects of local history and also on the management
and care of collections of historic material.
Illustration: Greek-Cypriot blessing of the sea ceremony,
Margate, 1960s (Courtesy of the Kentish
Times).
We are currently involved in a number of funding bids being
prepared by community groups and relating to the setting up of
community archives in order to give local people more access to
historic collections relating to their area . Groups we are
currently in contact with include
Marden
Local History Society and
Smarden heritage Centre (these links open in
new windows).
We have also done some exploratory work looking at the many
different cultural communities represented in Kent both currently
and back in time. Over the past few years we have contacted the
Greek Cypriot community, the Sikh community and the Muslim
community in order to find out more about their history in Kent.
This is an ongoing part of our work and the results of some of our
research can be seen on the
Here's History website (this link opens in a
new window).
Illustration: The Florendia Guest House, Canterbury Road,
Margate in 1965. This is where early Greek Orthodox services were
held in the town.
A volunteer at Canterbury Cathedral Library, has been working
through our collections looking for records of people from black,
asian and non-European backgrounds and has recently compiled a
list of these records. This makes references to documents
relating to people from different cultures who have lived in Kent
during the past 400 years.
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