Torpoint Archives
Torpoint Archives now has a Heritage Centre at Torpoint Library and Community Hub.
Torpoint Archives and Heritage Centre opened a heritage centre on July 1st 2019 where artefacts and photos are on display. There is a slide show photographic display and volunteers on hand to help with enquiries.
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Torpoint is in the far South East of Cornwall, and is an eighteenth century planned town. The grid-based design for the town was commissioned by Reginald Pole Carew in the Parish of Antony in 1774. His family continued to have a strong influence in the area, having become the Carew Poles, and still reside at their family seat, Antony House.
Torpoint Archives is a registered charity No: 1043650 run by a dedicated group of volunteers. Our object is to advance the education of the public by the establishment and maintenance of a Museum and Archive in Torpoint.
Torpoint Archives Aims:-
- To collect, record, preserve and display items of Torpoint’s past, both social and documentary.
- To collect, record and preserve that from Torpoint’s present which will be of interest to future historians and researchers.
- To build upon the present photographic and sound Archive for the benefit of interested people in Torpoint.
- To foster an interest in the history and achievements of the town of Torpoint amongst young and old.
- The establishment of a base for local Family History Research.
- The establishment of a local Oral History Archive.
Torpoint Archives grew out of two private collections started in the 1940’s and 50’s. This has grown since 1993 when it was registered as a non-profit charity and rented premises from Torpoint Town Council. Torpoint Archives is supported by Torpoint Town Council and continues to support the work carried out by the volunteers, to record our local history.
The pictorial presentations are prepared from our catalogue of over 15,000 photographs, some over 119 years old. Biographical, social and details of locations are recorded in a database, currently holding in excess of 150,000 entries. There are also transcriptions of many church and school records dating back almost 200 years.
These records are constantly being added to, as an example, just recently hundreds of sports team photographs from the 1980’s/90’s and other records were donated by Torpoint Community College. All of these are being catalogued, added to our database and digitised, to provide a permanent record for future generations.
We have two volunteers dedicated to running and updating our database. One dedicated to recording, cataloguing and scanning photographs. The Archives co-ordinator researches and prepares all the displays, not only at the premises, but other events around the town and other Museum groups in east Cornwall. The co-ordinator also prepares talks and presentations to local groups and schools on a regular basis, using powerpoint presentations, as well as real artefacts for people to see. Other volunteers are responsible for the hardware, software and storage solutions we use. In addition there are outreach volunteers researching and adding information for our database from their home.
Other people support us by becoming members, by paying an annual fee of £6.
Everyone is a volunteer and no one receives any remuneration or expenses.
The volunteers give in excess of 2,000 hours work annually.
We are open to the public Monday to Friday 10-12 and 2-4pm and Saturdays 10-12noon.
We rely totally on grants and donations to enable us to carry out our work/research and improve our records.