The Society is most fortunate to have been given a significant amount of archival material over the years, with 28,000+ items now recorded on the catalogue.
Collections
The archive contains some large bequests and donations to the Society, such as those of two past HHS President: the Joan Schwitzer Collection contains a wide variety of material relating particularly to Highgate, while the Ken Gay Collection is particularly strong on Muswell Hill.
Photographs
We have also have a significant archive of photographs including the Percy Barralet Collection of photographs taken between 1886 and 1888, the Alfred Braddock collection, and prints from the North Middlesex Photographic Society, whose members took photographs mainly between 1880 and 1914. For more details and examples of the photographs we hold see the photography pages.
Maps
A good overview of some of the maps we hold can be found on the maps page.
Newspapers
Our newspaper collection includes an almost complete collection of bound copies of the local newspaper, The Hornsey Journal, from 1880 – 1970.
Catalogue
The archive is recorded in the catalogue. The catalogue is an Excel spreadsheet (11 MB) which is available to download at no cost The catalogue is updated roughly every three months (last updated 27.06.24) so if you have a previous version, you might want to download the latest version. It currently lists 28,700+ items.
The spreadsheet acts as a database that can be filtered to search the various fields, such as types of material and descriptions. There is a brief key to the category groups used in the catalogue as a Word document (6 KB).
Contents
The catalogue contains details of a wide variety of material:
- Articles mainly press cuttings and magazine articles taken from printed publications
- Books including booklets and other published work in book form
- Documents and records of meetings, reports, discussion or consultation papers and contracts and agreements
- Drawings and sketches
- Ephemera items produced for a specific short-term purpose such as leaflets, posters, programmes, exhibition material, tickets and wrappers
- Exhibitions advertisements, catalogues and display material relating to exhibitions organised by HHS
- Indexes and lists
- Letters including e-mail and other correspondence
- Manuscripts and original typescripts
- Maps including street plans, transport and other visual representation of data
- Media material on CD, DVD, videotape & audiotape and digital images
- Newspapers either bound volumes, single copies or supplements to an edition
- Objects small three-dimensional items
- Paintings
- Pamphlets, broadsheets, brochures and other information sheets
- Periodicals, newsletters, annual bulletins and magazines of a weekly or monthly publication
- Photographs both original and copies, also, slides, negatives and printing plates
- Plans of buildings, estates, etc
- Postcards
- Prints and printed drawings or book plates, and reproductions of drawings and paintings
- Title deeds and other property documents relating to specified properties.
Opening hours
The archive room is open every Friday from 10.00am to 2.00pm, manned by a volunteer Archive Team who help researchers navigate the catalogue and locate and retrieve items from the archive room. The schoolroom is small and visitors wishing to undertake research are urged to book a place ahead of time. For details of how to get here see the contact page.
The Team also runs an enquiry service for people who cannot come to The Old Schoolhouse. To email us, put the word ARCHIVES in front of the @ sign followed by: hornseyhistorical.org.uk or telephone: 020 8348 8429 and leave a message on days when The Old Schoolhouse is closed.
Please be aware that we are not a family history society, although we can help you with ideas for researching your family.