Take a look inside our archives

TAKE A LOOK INSIDE OUR ARCHIVES

Greene King’s archives have been described, by people who’ve made the journey to the top floor of 6 Westgate Street, as a ‘treasure trove’. So what can you find there?

The word ‘archive’ can conjure up images of dusty papers in piles and bundles – a scene from the novels of Charles Dickens perhaps – but in fact archives can include photographs, museum objects, equipment and all sorts of unexpected things, as well as records. In the Greene King archive, you’ll find a collection of historic bottles that our beers were sold in. A recent addition to the collection is actually a teardrop-shaped bottle, rather unusual, that contained one of the company’s soft drinks (known as ‘minerals’) dating from the 1880s. Bottle labels from different decades have also been carefully listed in the archive and are available to view in special archive albums, also beer mats or coasters (collecting these is called ‘tegestology’ by the way!) As if that weren’t enough, you will also find a wonderful collection of photographs of the Westgate Fire Brigade dating back to the nineteenth century, the members of the brigade wearing their uniforms standing proudly in front of the engines. This was a tradition that continued into the 1980s. Continuity and tradition are very much themes, as you would expect: the company’s role in the history of Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area can be explored in depth by browsing through the files and ledgers that trace employment and social history. It is possible to discover who worked for the company and the ownership of different pubs through the years. It is also a story about the creativity involved in developing the products and marketing them, and there is a rich collection of advertising and promotional material in the archive too. Some oral history recordings have also been captured, and the memories shared in this way add yet another dimension to the picture. If anyone would like to find out more, or if perhaps you have something you would like to share or add to the archive, please contact the Archivist Lucy Hughes, who works here one day a week. The email address is GKArchive@greeneking. co.uk

Lucy Hughes, Archivist