Colour
This afternoon was spent at the Archive, catching up on some of those Land Tax records from yesterday. Desperate for some colour in all that fairly neutral paper, parchment and ink I sought to collect a series of images where colour is either clearly seen or obscured. There seems to be a process of covering seals with pieces of paper, were these to blot the wax which as the wax dried the paper remained fixed or is it another entirely different type of mark? Susan is usually my source of answers for these things and so will ask her when I see her next.
The Land Tax records we looked at were for St Peter Mancroft. With the Archive centre sitting on the site of the former house of Martineau, I wonder if we can find the relevant records relating to his Land Tax bill in the year we are looking at. The records are arranged by parish and I had little idea about how to find out which parish boundary the County Hall site sits within. Asking the archivist on duty at the desk, the parish question, brought about a search on the Internet, exploration of a series of maps and a discussion with a colleague to find the answer: Lakenham. Will ask if these documents might be available for next weeks session. We can then assess just how wealthy Martineau was.
