Explore Lancashire Archives
Explore 900 years of Lancashire's history.
Explore Lancashire Archives
Thoughts from Lancashire Archives podcast
Thoughts from Lancashire Archives podcast
Schools
Lancashire Archives can help primary school teachers and children explore their local history.
Access to Archive Collections, Summer 2024-Spring 2025
We are improving the storage facilities at Lancashire Archives to help safeguard Lancashire's archive collections for the future. This is an opportunity to future-proof our strongrooms and to make sure we can continue to provide the best care for all types of records including digital, photographic and written collections. The necessary building work will mean some disruption to our service. Some records will be temporarily stored off site and this will have an impact on our ability to deliver on-the-day access to some collections. All archives affected will have a note on LANCAT, our online catalogue. This will let you know that advance notice of 10 working days will be needed in order to access these items. This will apply to around 10% of the records in our care and most records remain accessible on the day.
Please continue to book and visit the Archives as usual and if you have any questions please get in touch.
Our collections
Search our online catalogue, LANCAT, and explore other guides to archive collections.
Visit us
Information for planning your visit to Lancashire Archives for research, to see our exhibitions or attend an event.
Enquiries and research
Find out how we can help if you are unable to visit the office in person or would like more help with your research.
Digitisation service
We can provide copies of items in our collections as well as creating images of your own documents.
Schools
We can offer schools free resources and on site learning opportunities
Volunteer with us
Find out how you can help Lancashire Archives and Local History preserve the history and tell the story of nearly a thousand years of Lancashire.
Archives magazine
Our Archives magazine celebrates the rich and diverse history of Lancashire. It is full of stories about the people, places and events that shaped the county.
Thoughts from Lancashire Archives podcast
A series of conversations about interesting items from the collections at Lancashire Archives.
About our friends
The Friends of Lancashire Archives promote, support, and assist our work.
Keeping East Lancashire in the picture
An exciting new two-year project, bringing together thousands of people in East Lancashire, to make historic photographs collections more accessible, inclusive and sustainable.
Clarets Collected
This Lancashire Archives and Local History project is bringing together a fan-led Burnley Football Club Archive at Burnley Library.
Archives plans and reports
Strategies, policies, plans and reports for Lancashire's libraries and archives.
Tell us about an event you attended at the Archives
Please help us to make our events better by completing this short feedback form.
Inside the archives
We visited Lancashire Archives recently to look back at some of the transport history of Lancashire.
Learn more about our archives and plan your visit.