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VO: Keeping our past safe for the future is the idea behind one of Wiltshire’s most impressive new buildings – the Wiltshire and Swindon history centre.

This state of the art building – shortlisted for a national design award - was built to house Wiltshire and Swindon’s past – and that means everything from parish records and wills to precious historic artefacts.

The centre was built through a partnership of Wiltshire County Council and Swindon Borough Council and was designed with you in mind. It’s easy to get to, well signposted as you come into the town and just a short walk from the railway station. There’s lots of free parking, great facilities and even picnic tables outside for al fresco eating.

This centre is proving popular- it clocked up more than 10,000 visitors in its first six months – all keen to explore their family trees, research the histories of their homes and to learn more about local history.

There are first-class facilities for family historians here - light roomy reading rooms, internet facilities that include access to a range of specialist family history research programmes, and an education room for schools that can also be used by groups and for lectures and demonstrations.
…And well informed staff that are always on hand to help….

Rob Pearson: Well, over two thirds of our visitors are here to do family history. There is an enormous growth in this subject over the last few years, mainly through the use of the internet where you can find out all sorts of things like census records and also through television programmes like Who Do You Think You Are and The House Detectives.

Another major use of our records is for house history and also for local history. The types of records we have are things like  parish registers of births, marriages and burials, there are church wardens’ accounts of the poor of the village, there are also school records that can be used, and old maps which can be fascinating.

VO: The centre has a staggering seven miles of shelving holding documents spanning almost seven centuries. It also holds microfilms, journals, building records, books, archaeological records and conservation reports. It also houses an impressive collection of books on Wiltshire along with the archives of the National Trust.

There are also around 70,000 historic photographs, some of which are on glass plates – and all kept in special temperature controlled storage areas to protect them from deterioration.

And if you want to know how we got from A to B 100 years ago, the centre has more than 3000 maps featuring the development of the canals, the railways and the toll roads.
 
Keeping our history safe for future generations is the key role of the centre and its staff. And behind the scenes is a network of high tech storage facilities and conservation laboratories.

Tom Craig: Here at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre we preserve all the archives for Wiltshire and Swindon. It’s a lot of archives – twenty eight thousand boxes (28,000) three thousand maps (3,000) and they are protected to British Standard 5454. This involves eight inch thick concrete walls and four hour steel fire doors. That’s to keep fires out but if fire did start inside we have full gas fire suppression systems and air conditioning to make certain these important records are at the right temperature and humidity.

Our very earliest archive goes all the way back to Norman times when an abbey, a local abbey only four miles from the history centre, was receiving tracts of land from the Norman kings. And one of those was signed off by Richard I as he went to the Crusades. He in fact stamped the seal in Sicily as he voyaged to the Holy Land.
 
VO: Historic artefacts like documents and records can come from a variety of sources – some find their way here after being stored in attics or sheds and are sometimes not in the best of conditions. Conservation of these important maps and documents is another important part of the behind the scenes work.

Paul Smith: This is the archive conservation section. We have archives coming to us from all over the county in various sorts of conditions. It is of paramount importance that archive material is stored in good conditions. A lot of problems in the past have been caused when items have been kept in cellars or attics. Over a period of time they tend to get wet and you get mould growth forming on them.
I have an example here – a bundle of ordination papers from the diocese of Salisbury which was actually stored in a cellar and water has got onto the documents. A combination of the dampness and the warmth of the cellar have meant a mould growth has formed on the paper. It gradually breaks down the structure. It is incredibly frail but even in that condition we can get it back into a reasonable state.

You can see how important storage is. In contrast – that actual bundle was eighteenth century – I have an example here of parchment documents again from Salisbury which dates from the twelfth century.

We deal with a variety of materials. We do bookbinding, photographic conservation of which I have an example here, and map repair which we do on the wall board behind me

The history centre is not just open for research – it also now hosts a series of specialist lectures and courses. To find out more about this and opening times, please call 01249 705500 or visit www.wiltshire.gov.uk

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