The Doreen Valiente Foundation
 The Collections of the Doreen Valiente Foundation (DVF), are one of Britain’s prominent independent collection of Objects, Artefacts and Documents relating to the history and origins of Wicca and modern Paganism in Britain. This collection is the accumulation of Doreen Valiente (1922- 1999) over fifty years. These documents, objects and artefacts include items that Doreen created herself, had gifted to her by Gerald Gardner, or object that she had acquired over her life time as a practitioner of many craft traditions. The Collection houses some 700 objects and artefacts, as well as over 2000 books, documents and manuscripts; these including many rare first editions, as well as Doreen’s personal diaries and magickal documents. A key piece of the collection is one of Gerald Gardner’s original working Book of Shadows.
Doreen Valiente is credited as a Mother of Wicca, a title deserving to the woman who was a key figure in the emergence of Wicca and who unassisted took the sketchy and mis-credited material of Gerald Gardner’s Wica: Book of Ye Arte Magickal and redesigned the traditions base material, through her own writings and poetry. Doreen transformed the old material and produced the new text of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows which is still used by all Gardnerian covens across the world. During her life time Doreen was not only an initiate of Wicca, but of many Craft traditions of Britain. Doreen Valiente passed on the first of September 1999, and her collection of objects, artefacts and documents were passed onto John Bellham-Payne a Co-Founder of the Centre for Pagan Studies.
John Bellham-Payne made the greatest altruistic decision of removing this prominent collection from his private ownership and gave it to the nation and so the Doreen Valiente Foundation was formed on the 6th March 2011 as a charitable trust, taking all legal ownership of the collection. The DVF is now working towards a permanent location for the Centre for Pagan Studies which will incorporate a museum of for the Collection and act as an education and research facility for Paganism in Britain.
You can find out more @ :Â centre-for-pagan-studies.com and doreenvaliente.org
 -The Cabal Project











