Join us for an exciting skills workshop at Carlisle Archives as part of a new volunteer research project “Melancholy, Mania and Metallurgy: Unlocking the Asylum Archives”. This project will be uncovering the stories of North Pennines lead miners and their families who spent time in county asylums.

The workshop, on Tuesday 3 March, 12 noon to 4pm, is an opportunity to learn archive skills and interact with historical material from the Garlands Hospital collection (formerly known as Cumberland and Westmorland County Lunatic Asylum). It will include:

•    A behind the scenes tour of the archive
•    A display class with historical material from the Garlands Hospital collection (patient registers, illustrated casebooks, post-mortem reports) exploring how to use them and what they can tell us
•    An illustrated history of Cumberland and Westmorland County Lunatic Asylum
•    Introduction to palaeography skills (reading old handwriting) with an activity using original documents
•    Introduction to digital resources session with an activity using Ancestry records

Please note that this project is for adults only. Historical documents use outdated terminology to describe disability and mental health conditions and may also contain material that some people find offensive or distressing.

Please sign up using the volunteer platform Better Impact

Image (c) Ninesergeants