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Scope and Contents

The collection consists of 7 bound volumes containing over 700 ballads from the personal library of Sir Charles Harding Firth.

For digital images and finding aids for this collection please see the links in the external documents section below.

Scope and Contents

Some 220 broadside ballads of the 19th century, from the library of W.A.S. Hewins.

For further details of this collection, and digitised images, please see the external documents section below.

Scope and Contents

Paper and electronic copies of Derek S. Newby’s 'A compilation of ballads and songs of South West Durham'.

For further details of this collection please see the finding aid in the External Documents Section below.

Scope and Contents The collection is in fact one item – a piece of linen twenty centimetres wide and, when unrolled to its full extent, nine metres long, on to which have been pasted fifty sheets, containing a total of 260 broadside ballads (including seven duplicates). These printed sheets carry song texts, some with tune titles and some decorated at the top with woodcut pictures. The choice of medium to carry these sheets is believed to derive from the fact that the Sykes family were cloth merchants....