Driving Local History Forward
To support British Tourism Week, a map celebrating a unique part of Warwickshire’s history is being launched on Friday 19th March and will be available in local libraries and tourist information centres in the area.
To demonstrate how local history can be fun as well as interesting, Warwickshire County Record Office have produced a ‘Waller guide map’.
Copies of the map are free and will take you on a drive around Warwick and surrounding areas and provides details of sites and buildings of interest that are relevant to the Wise and Waller families.
For the past two years the Heritage Lottery Fund has supported a project which is based at the Warwickshire County Record Office called ‘Outside the Box’.
Focusing on the Waller Collection archive, held at the Record Office, the project has delivered numerous events, activities and workshops for adults and children across Warwickshire, all of which have raised the profile of the Wise and Waller families, who had significant links to the county in the past.
The collection houses documents and letters on noteworthy people such as Henry Wise (1653—1738) who was Royal gardener to William and Mary, Queen Anne and George I and, for a period of time, lived at the Priory in Warwick, currently the site of the County Record Office.
There are also many family personal letters including those of Lt George Henry Waller (1837-1892), which he sent home to his family during his time in the Crimean. George went on to live at Woodcote, which is now the site of the Police Headquarters in Leek Wootton.
Project Manager, Alaina MacGregor, says: “A lot of time has been spent creating a really colourful and informative map which will be available for members of the public to explore their own interest in local history or even be used for a fun family day out.
"Knowing that over 10,000 copies will available to tourists and people in Warwickshire is a nice legacy and great end for this wonderful project”.