The Great Sarratt Scrapbook

A Brief History

We have to give grateful thanks to our two Rectors, father and son, for compiling and maintaining our scrapbooks. The scrapbooks give a social history of our small Hertfordshire village for over 150 years. The Rev. Edward Ryley came to Sarratt in 1859 to find a church, Holy Cross, in great need of repair and refurbishment; and no village school. He immediately set about rectifying both these problems - and fortunately, he kept a record of everything he did. Many years later, after Edward died, his son (Noel) Gilbert Ryley became Rector of Sarratt in 1912 and organised all of his father's ephemera into a giant scrapbook. Edward had kept anything he could find about Sarratt — plans of the church rebuilding, newspaper clippings, programmes of church and village events, photographs — the list is endless, and we are so fortunate to have all these everyday artefacts to provide a record of village life dating back to 1859. Gilbert then continued his father's work, but following his death, the Scrapbook passed to subsequent incumbents, most of whom were too busy to maintain this village archive. Eventually, in 1993 the Scrapbook again came to light and a group was formed to refurbish and maintain this wonderful record. With the aid of a grant, the book was sent to the UK's leading book and paper conservators in Falkirk, Scotland, who deal with archival records for institutions such as The British Library. They dismantled the whole work, pasted everything back on acid-free paper and rebound the book into two volumes. At the same time, the volumes were photographed on to microfiche and microfilm, so we had a record of the contents. A microfiche reader was bought and lent to interested local people. Two further blank volumes were bought so that the Sarratt Local History Society could continue to maintain a record of our village to the present time. We would welcome any material you may have relating to our village: please see the contacts page, which describes how you can get in touch with us.

We are now entering the next phase of he scrapbook's existence. With the aid of modern technology; and generous funding from Sarratt Parish Council and a small number of individual benefactors, the first two volumes have been digitised and are fully searchable so that anyone online can use this wonderful archive.

Using the Scrapbooks

At present, two volumes of the Scrapbook have been digitised. They may be accessed as either a digital flipbook or in pdf form. Both formats are indexed and searchable: the flipbooks are thought to be more useful for browsing through life in the Parish over the past two centuries, while you may also find them helpful in identifying pages of particular interest for further research.

The pdf files are presented at much higher resolution (and are consequently much larger files), suitable for more detailed or intensive examination. We welcome constructive comment regarding these presentations of the Scrapbook.

By its very nature the Scrapbook contains many old documents, some of which have faded or yellowed over the years. Although the pages will display on all devices, please bear in mind that the physical size of the original document (somewhat larger than A3), and the inevitable online compromises between magnification, file size and page loading times mean that they are best viewed on larger devices and over a fast connection. Please also be aware that, even with various image optimisation techniques, these are still very large files. Accordingly, we have added an Advanced Search facility so that once an article's volume and page number have been identified, individual pages may be accessed.

The physical Scrapbooks may of course be viewed at village events, where they are often on display.

Sarratt Local History Society asserts its right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of the physical and digital versions of the Sarratt Scrapbook and of this website. These are presented on a fair dealing, non-commercial basis for private research. All copyright holders are acknowledged and no claim is made over material copyrighted elsewhere. You agree not to download, copy or redistribute any part of any volume of the Sarratt Scrapbook for commercial purposes.

The page number on which an article appears can be identified in both flipbook and pdf versions of the scrapbook. If you have already identified an article that you wish to access, or know its Scrapbook volume and and page number, then copy the following address…

https://sarrattlocalhistorysociety.org/Scrapbooks/Pages/VolumeX/YYYY.jpg

…and paste it into your browser window

You should then substitute the X with the Volume No. (Currently 1 or 2) and YYYY with the four-figure equivalent of the page number you require - such as 0003 for page 3, 0076 for page 76 and 0123 for page 123.

Example: Volume 2, page 65 (the 1927 Accounts for the Chorleywood Volunteer Fire Brigade) would be accessed with:

https://sarrattlocalhistorysociety.org/Scrapbooks/Pages/Volume2/0065.jpg


Note: There are no spaces in the address line

  • Using the Scrapbook

    At present, two volumes of the Scrapbook have been digitised. They may be accessed as either a digital flipbook or as higher reolution pdfs. Both formtats are indexed and searchable: the flipbooks are more useful for for browsing through life in the Parish over the past two centuries, while the pdf files are more useful for more intensive research.

    By its very nature the Scrapbook contains many old documents, some of which have faded or yellowed over the years. Althought the flipbook pages will display on all devices, please bear in mind that the physical size of the original document (somewhat larger than A3), and the inevitable online compromises between magnification, file size and page loading times mean that they are best viewed on larger devices and over a fast connection. Please also be aware that, even with various image optimisation techniques, these are still very large files.

    The physical Scrapbooks may of course be viewed at village events, where they are often on display.

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Sarratt Local History Society asserts its right under the

Using the Scrapbooks

At present, two volumes of the Scrapbook have been digitised. They may be accessed as either a digital flipbook or as higher resolution pdfs. Both formats are indexed and searchable: the flipbooks are more useful for for browsing through life in the Parish over the past two centuries, while the pdf files are more useful for more intensive research.

By its very nature the Scrapbook contains many old documents, some of which have faded or yellowed over the years. Althought the flipbook pages will display on all devices, please bear in mind that the physical size of the original document (somewhat larger than A3), and the inevitable online compromises between magnification, file size and page loading times mean that they are best viewed on larger devices and over a fast connection. Please also be aware that, even with various image optimisation techniques, these are still very large files.

The physical Scrapbooks may of course be viewed at village events, where they are often on display.

A note about copyright
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