The Archives are intended to provide students of Great Baddow history or family history with worthwhile data and to encourage them to dig deeper. To this end a downloadable index spreadsheet is provided and an online version of the index which may be browsed.

If you are interested in seeing the documents referred to in the archive index, you will be glad to know that copies of all the documents are available in Great Baddow Library; the only exception is Volume 4, which is currently being reorganised.

Many documents may be viewed in the library, and photocopies may be purchased there by agreement with library staff.

Items which have the prefix ‘PC’ before the volume number belong to the Parish Council archives, and copies of these are not held in the library. If you are interested in these items please contact the Parish Council office (email address info@greatbaddowparishcouncil.co.uk ).

Many documents are subject to copyright and any photocopy requests must be for private use only and in accordance with the Act.

Online searching

For online searching note that you may either:

• Download the archive index spreadsheet directly as an Excel file.

• Download by accessing using the menu system and selecting the option ‘Local history in the left hand menu.Within the display of further menu items in the centre column:
• The first item is an introduction to the archives in general
• The second item is an introduction to the archive index
• The third item is the downloadable index itself.
• The fourth item is an online Archive index

Select this third item to access the downloadable index spreadsheet.

We recommend users with PCs to download the index using one of the above options and to continue searching using Excel. This option provides separate worksheets of the index sorted by both reference number and index term and provides you with a complete copy of the index for all documents in the archives.

Search using the search box (top right of web page)

If you know it, by using a reference number which ranges from 1000 – 5470, usually in steps of 10. Entering a 4 digit reference number will list the corresponding entry with its identifying title. E.g. “4310” will show 'This is Great Baddow'. Brief history concentrating on involvement in Peasants' Revolt. Clicking on the retrieved result will show the full entry.

Using an index term. E.g. “Peasants' Revolt, 1381” will retrieve the same entry as above.Entering “bronze age” retrieves two relevant entries.

Note that when making use of the search box, the search is made of the entire site and hence other documents on the site outside the archive index may also be retrieved if the entered term exists within the content of other non archive index items.

This approach is recommended for occasional quick access to either a single document by reference number or a group of documents indexed using the same term.

Browse the online index

This is the fourth item in the list of second level menu choices. (or select from left hand menus – Local history/Archive index).

Note in this case you may browse all the documents; only the titles are displayed initially, and the listing sequence is that of creation on the index. However each title links to the corresponding full entry on the computerised index and may be viewed.

This option is only slightly helpful and not recommended except for casual browsing.

Using the spreadsheet provides the most flexibility.

Feedback

Users of the site are invited to submit any comments on the local history content of this site to chris.harvey@greatbaddowonline.co.uk as we want to build on the information held so far in order to create a more extensive record in future.