1780s for four of the other townships. From 1891 borough rate-books for the census years only have been retained. Valuations date from the 1820s and 1830s. These records were kept in the vestry halls of the several wards of the city and thus escaped the destruction by enemy action which befell the records stored in the Union offices in West Bar. Vestry minutes for several townships from the early nineteenth century have also survived, together with some highway surveyors' records. All the records of the old poor law together with the Guardians' records for both the Sheffield and Ecclesall Unions were destroyed in the West Bar offices. Most of the old workhouse records have likewise disappeared. Apart from runs of Guardians' printed minutes, this important side of local life is very sparsely represented among the official records. A good deal of information about the old poor law can however be gleaned from private collections, especially solicitors' collections. Practically all of the current council departments and directorates are represented in the Archives collections. Worthy of note are council and committee minutes from 1843 onwards; registers of children's homes from 1894; school records from many hundreds of schools, a full series of claims for damage and loss on account of the Sheffield flood of 1864 caused by the bursting of the Damflask reservoir, though to modern papers on the World Student games of 1991 and the recent urban renaissance project - Heart of the City. Other public bodies whose records may be mentioned are the Doncaster and Mexborough Joint Hospital Board from 1900 - 1948, the Sheffield Gas Company from 1818, and the Coal Board's pre-vesting date records for this area. Public Records Local public records include Sheffield Quarter Sessions, Magistrate Courts and H.M. Coroners, health authorities and hospitals and records of once nationalised industries such as the National Coal Board for South Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Water Authority. Ecclesiastical records As the Diocesan Record Office for the Archdeaconry of Sheffield, Sheffield Archives holds records for most of the Anglican parishes within the area, including registers, and records of the Diocese itself. Also held are records of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hallam and its parishes, and numerous records of other denominations such as Methodists and Quakers etc. Sheffield also holds a cartulary of Beauchief Abbey, a Premonstratensian house formerly in Derbyshire, the site of which is now within the city of