Markenfield, The World of Archives, and The Archives of The World - Markenfield Hall

Ian Curteis was a playwright, dramatist, television director and meticulous historical researcher and, crucially, one of the many significant residents of Markenfield Hall. His extensive archive of scripts, research notes and correspondence now resides at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, one of the largest archive repositories in the UK.

Taking the Curteis Archive as its starting point, this talk opens out into the remarkable breadth of the Borthwicks holdings, which span nearly a thousand years of shared history. From the records of the Archbishops of York and Thomas de Markenfield in the fourteenth century, to the scripts ofHancocks Half Hour; from cocoa plantations in Venezuela to the heart of the Nazi state, the collections reveal unexpected connections across time, place and space.
Along the way, the talk will explore how archives are preserved, interpreted and made accessible - not simply as records of the past, but as foundations for future scholarship and public understanding. It offers an opportunity to look behind the scenes at the care and stewardship of historical collections, and to consider how individual lives, creative work and global events are captured in documentary form.

Gary Brannan is Keeper of Archives and Research Collections at the University of York. With over twenty years experience in the Yorkshire archives sector, he has strategic responsibility for the Borthwick Institute for Archives, the Universitys Rare Books Library, and the Universitys extensive Art Collection.