Shakespeare’s marriage bond and a mummified bird are among the more unusual items archived by a county service celebrating its 75th year.

Former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s personal archive and a letter from the Titanic have also been collected and preserved by Worcestershire's Archive & Archaeology service.

The Worcestershire County Archives is celebrating its 75th year this year and staff are delighted.

Maggie Tohill, senior archivist at Worcestershire County Council, said: “We are really proud of our awarding winning archives service, and we are thrilled to be marking a such a significant milestone this year.

“So much hard work and dedication has gone into preserving historically important documents and items, over the last 75 years, and I would like to thank all the staff that have had a hand in caring for the past for the benefit of present and future generations.”

The archive service launched in 1947 as a records collection for the documents used by the county council, but also contained more specialist collections and it later expanded to include Diocesan records.

Worcester News: Archives staff with a cheque after a bequest was left to record office staffArchives staff with a cheque after a bequest was left to record office staff

The service is currently based at The Hive and was opened in 2012.

Looking forward, the Archives is working to expand the collections to include documents and items from more diverse communities, as well as focusing on archiving digital records so that future generations can access them.

The mummified bird, which has been nicknamed Tom after the trainee archivist that found it, was discovered among business records formerly in the possession of the Burlingham Company.

The bird seemed to have been filed by the company in one of five large lever arch files labelled only as 'Old Records'. Despite their best efforts, archivists have been unable to find out exactly why the bird was kept by the company.

A display celebrating the 75 years of the archive service will be on display on the second floor of The Hive tomorrow (April 27).

More information on 75 years of the archives, and information on the mummified bird find, can be found on the Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service's website explorethepast.co.uk.