A note found with the collection describes it as a collection of letters, deeds and accounts, etc ranging from 1560 to 1820 illustrating watermarks used in the manufacture of paper . This accompanies a numbered list of documents which gives a brief description of any watermarks, but no technical identification or dating of them. Despite the fact that these documents appear to have been artifically been bought together, there is a discernible archival unity to the collection.
It seems that they once formed part of the papers of the Freemen, Edwards and Mitford families of Batsford and includes papers related to the administration of their own estates, as well as those created in the course of their work as lawyers.Items of particular interest include: Elizabethan court rolls for the manors of Uckington (Gloucestershire) 1562, Tempster (Montgomeryshire) 1584 and Saintbury (Gloucestershire) 1603; papers related to the advowson and tithes of the manor of Saintbury; and 17th century medicinal recipes and prescriptions