It is pleasing to be able to report that on the 4th anniversary of the launch of the Great Parchment Book website yesterday, the number of views of the site passed 130,000.

The website was launched on 30 May 2013 immediately prior to the opening of the  exhibition “Plantation: Process, people, perspectives” in Derry Guildhall  in June 2013 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the building of the city walls in the year that Derry-Londonderry celebrated being the UK’s first City of Culture. The digitally reconstructed manuscript, accessible for the first time in over 200 years via the dedicated website, took pride of place in the exhibition which has proved to be a great success and still running today.

Here’s looking forward to at least 150,000 views before 30 May 2018 when we will be 5 years old!

We also celebrated the anniversary with a curator’s talk on the Great Parchment Book in the Heritage Gallery at Guildhall, where three folios of the book are on display, on the first ever London History Day today (31 May). This event was also part of  a programme celebrating the 950th anniversary of the City of London Corporation’s extensive archives in 2017. The members of the small, but attentive audience had obviously done their research before hand and had lots of interesting questions. Several were going on to other London History Day events in the City of London and beyond, including at London Metropolitan Archives. It is great to be able to showcase some of the archival treasures held by the City of London as part of this new venture.