Recently discovered documents showing the supply of water to houses in Victorian Hereford will soon be made available to researchers at Herefordshire Council’s Record Office.

Dating from the 1870s, these registers show the households that were increasingly being connected to the city’s supply of clean drinking water. This was during a period when epidemics caused by poor sanitation were still rife.

The cataloguing of the registers will be one of the tasks undertaken by the staff of the Record Office during its annual stocktaking closure from 26 November until 14 December inclusive.

Other projects will include the indexing of a major local history collection of archives that was formerly held at the Library.

During the stocktaking closure there will be a full service for enquirers by telephone, email and letter.

Rhys Griffith, senior archivist said: ‘We aim to take advantage of this year’s closure to make some really exciting archives available to our researchers. It will be yet another window opened on the county’s history”.