We visited the Société Jersiaise photo archives to learn more about the history of Elizabeth Castle, primarily the history with the Occupation and WWII. After this visit, I realised that I had no idea that the castle had so much history with so many different things – I’d always seen it more as just a monument for Queen Elizabeth I, not a place that housed exiled royalty or privateers.

We looked at several different physical copies of old photographs, letters, and drawings of or to do with the castle, and given a talk by photo-archivist Patrick Cahill on the importance of documentation and archiving – it gives people in the present mostly necessary information about the past that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. We also learned about the process of archiving, how they sort everything in their systems, and how they decide what they can and can’t display for public access within the archives.

We were also told about their online archive that is publicly available on the Société Jersiaise website, featuring 8 main sections of different media stored on their databases, including newspapers, annual bulletins, maps/plans, books, albums, photographs, talks and resources.

These resources will all be perfectly useful for the development and production of our short film on Elizabeth Castle, and will help me grasp a better idea of the history of the building and what it means to the island.