Odds and quads

The Christmas card dates from 1909 and depicts a typically jovial Edwardian scene of portly gents enjoying a festive tipple in a cosy house, sheltered from the biting cold outside.

Rather different is the special issue of The Clarion from Christmas 1944 advertising dramatic performances for Allied prisoners of war in Stalag 344 (taken from the papers of William Rogan, from Newark in Nottinghamshire, who was held as a PoW in Germany from 1940 to 1945).

Stations run by Nottingham's department of geography took full meteorological readings from 1946 to 1962. The little snowman was sketched in the corner of the map recording data for Christmas Day 1951.

A particularly dramatic example of a bleak Nottinghamshire midwinter is shown in the photograph of a snow-covered agricultural landscape. From the Trent River Authority archives, it was taken during the regrading of Drain 61 on the River Idle on 3 January 1963.

Send suggestions for this series on the treasures, oddities and curiosities owned by universities across the world to: matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com.