Magic Attic Archives

The Magic Attic is a local history archive situated at The Sharpe’s Heritage Centre, West Street, Swadlincote, Derbyshire, England.

The archive holds newspapers; old maps; catalogues from local works; some old company papers; old photographs; records of baptisms, burials and marriages; census returns and other local history memorabilia.

Although strongly South Derbyshire and North West Leicestershire orientated, the archive material also covers East Staffordshire and other parts of Derbyshire. The regular readers at the attic have a wide range of interests and a vast local knowledge.  The archive is a valuable source of information for research students, family historians, village history groups et al.

The attic was instrumental in the recovery of the long forgotten time capsule which was hidden within the foundations of the now demolished Woodville Primitive Methodist Chapel.

Windows into the Past

A local paper, the Burton Mail, donated to the Magic Attic approximately 4500 glass plate negatives dating from 1890-1940. The Windows into the Past project, funded by the Local Heritage Initiative, involved volunteers in making a full catalogue of the negatives, cleaning them, digitally scanning them into a specialised database and storing the originals inside archive quality containers. Volunteers made a full catalogue of the negatives, cleaned them, digitally scanned them into a specialised database and stored the originals inside archive quality containers. The negatives were made available on a user friendly database.