The People’s Archive of Stokes Croft

By Elena Newton, Third Year History

Containing a plethora of original source material, Chris Chalkley from the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft

(PRSC) collected flyers, articles, protest banners, artwork, and photographs from the early 2000s marking the

beginning of the Stokes Croft archive. At the beginning of this summer, the archive was a sporadic collection of

ephemera, interesting and organic, but unorganised and inaccessible to the public. In an effort to create an

archive which is open to the public, an accessible research resource, and a means to conserve local history, an

ongoing volunteer project over the last 8 weeks has sought to sift through the thousands of sources and

digitise a large proportion of the material.

The material in the archive documents a people’s history of the stokes croft area, demonstrating behind the

scenes political organising by the PRSC, to gig posters and artwork synonymous with the cultural wealth fuelled

by, and celebrated within, the community. The source material stresses the importance of ordinary people in

the area’s history, and the way in which people have lived their lives for the last 20 years, influenced by the

changing face of the area through gentrification, social issues such as homelessness, and political struggles

against austerity and cuts.

To celebrate the creation of the archive and open up the material to the public, an exhibition event on the 30th

of September hosted at PRSC headquarters attempts to tell a social history of Stokes Croft, charting the major

political struggles defining the community’s history such as the Tesco riots and bearpit controversy.

To attend the launch of the People’s Archive, head over to PRSC on 30th September from 7pm, for a night brimming with historic interest.