STAN Brotherton had an extension built at his home intending to use part of it to house his collection of books. But now about 50 feet of the shelving is taken up by nearly 270 archive volumes of the Evesham Journal.

Mr Brotherton, of Bengeworth, Evesham, is a member of Vale of Evesham Civic Society and treasurer of the Vale of Evesham Historical Society.

He stepped in when an appeal was made to the two groups and the town council to see if they could take the bound volumes dating from 1860 to 1979 (plus a handful of volumes from the 1980s and 1990s).

When these three organisations were unable to accommodate the archives Mr Brotherton, whose home is a "regular 1930s semi", offered to help out.

He said: "I think it is better to take everything rather than the archives being split up.

"I didn't want them lost or destroyed and no one else seemed able to help, so I offered."

The volumes mostly have board covers with a cloth or leather spine.

There are a handful from the 1980s and 1990s which are tabloid format. The rest are broadsheet with each volume.

They are all Evesham Journals. The oldest volume contains papers for four years, dating from 1860 to 1864. Early volumes are typically for a single year.

Those for the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s typically have four months bound into a single volume.

During the Second World War there was a shortage of paper, and these volumes contains six months of news.

The volumes are mostly complete, though some are missing, and quite a few have broken spines and damaged pages.

And, of the future for the archives? Mr Brotherton, who was treasurer for the Abbey Bell Tower Appeal which raised £500,000 to restore the iconic tower, said: "I have looked at a few of them, but at the moment the main focus is putting up more shelving; my initial calculations about how much shelving I would need was not quite right!"