LOCS works in close association with Looe Museum, situated on Fore Street, East Looe.  The Curator of the Museum, Barbara Birchwood-Harper is also the Archivist of LOCS.  Barbara writes:

 

Family History
2008 is the year in which Looe hosts not only the Gorsedd but also Dewhellans, a festival at which descendants of 19th century emigrants who left Cornwall to find work abroad, return to their roots. The focus this year at the museum, is on Family History and events are being organised for research. We have fiches of Parish Registers for 13 local parishes and Census information for all except 1861 & 1901. In addition, we are collecting information about local properties and have some Deeds. Wills & Caradon listings to help people to trace the history of local buildings. Our visitors may even be able to find an image of family members or former family homes in our extensive photograph archive.

Looe Photo Archive
Many new owners come in to look through our large photographic archive for images of their house. We were given access to 3 local collections of photographs in 2007, these have been copied and, thanks to the generosity of the original owners, we are able to sell copies. We find that people like to look back at how Looe looked in the past. So come in and browse through a century or so of people, places & fishing boats.

Documents
We have collected a number of deeds and wills and are currently indexing these together with details of the deeds held by LOCS. Whilst it adds to the excitement of discovery to see an ancestor’s name in a document, it is not always possible to trace the exact position of a property, but it can be fun following the clues. Wills are, of course, very useful but so far we only have a few.

Watercolours

Our famous Samuel Cook watercolours have been restored and re framed and are now on view again giving a snapshot of Looe groyne ( pre Banjo Pier) the old mill and old bridge in about 1850. We have a few more watercolours depicting the bridge and the river. Prints of these paintings are on sale as is a print of the huge photograph of Looe in 1870.

 

 

 

Is this the sort of gun that was on the Banjo during the second WW?

 

 

 

 

This is taken of the Weslyan School class in Dec. 1955.  Does any one recognise themselves, or indeed any other friend?

 

 

This was found over the door of 2 Orchard Cottage on West Looe Hill above the Catholic Church. It is now in LOCS archives, but what does it depict?  Is it some sort of heraldic design?

 

 

 

This is clearly East Looe, but where was the photo taken and what was the occasion?

Barbara Birchwood-Harper B.A. Curator

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