Forgotten Ruyton-XI-Towns papers found in old safe

Old documents which have not seen the light of day for more than 30 years have been discovered in a safe in Shropshire which had been locked up since the 1970s.

Members of Ruyton-XI-Towns' parish council uncovered the village records, believed to date from the 19th century, after deciding to get a professional locksmith in to open a mysterious safe which had for years been gathering dust in the village hall.

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There were nearly 30 documents found in the safe, which included title deeds to a number of the properties in the village. The papers give an insight into the village in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Dorothy Needham, parish council archivist, said: "A number of people looked after the safe keys, the people on the committee, but eventually the keys were lost."

She said that when the safe was opened, the earliest paper in there was from 1822 and was about property frontage lengths for highway repairs rates.

"It was super to find it in the safe. People thought it would have all rotted away because the safe is almost at ground level. We thought it would have got damp. We are really chuffed about it," she said.

Mrs Needham said she thought the safe may have not been opened since 1977.

Documents in the safe also included minutes from the parish council in 1894, when parish councils were first formed, and records of the collection of rates in the 1880s and 1890s.

Mrs Needham said: "The ratebooks which used to record the money collected by the local overseers contain very interesting information relating to parish householders and local property. There were also lists of properties, books with people signing up to be officers of the council.

"There are also two books about the George V celebrations and years of parish council minutes."

Mrs Needham said there were at least 14 boxes of documents to look through.

"At the moment some of the Parish Plan Steering Committee has got some of the papers, it is going to be quite a big job," she said.

A meeting will now be held on Monday at the village hall at 10.30am for people to help look through the papers and record them. They will then be handed over to Shropshire Archives.

Members of the public are invited to see the items on display on July 14.

Shropshire Archives, at Castle Gates, in Shrewsbury, holds more than five-and-a- half miles of material on Shropshire's past.

By Chrissy Symmons