Lancashire Archives and Local History annual report 2022-2023

About Lancashire Archives and Local History

Lancashire Archives cares for 900 years of the County’s history.

Millions of items, from medieval parchments to digital sound recordings, are stored on 9 miles of shelving in the strongrooms in Preston and in Local History Libraries around the county.

We collect and preserve archives so that Lancashire’s stories will be told in the future; and so they are available for everyone to use and enjoy today.

We are an Accredited Archive Service as designated by The National Archives and supported by an amazing team of volunteers and the Friends of Lancashire Archives.

Supported by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.

Access and Engagement

 In 2022-2023 we:

  • Launched our new Lancashire Local History Publication, Archives;
  • Recorded new podcasts for our series with expert historians built around Lancashire's archive collections;
  • Worked with Preston Recovery College on the innovative culture therapy project, Change Minds;
  • Produced 11,128 documents for Archive visitors; and provided over 180 Lancashire primary schools with teaching resources;
  • Collaborated with artist and musician Jennifer Reid, URPotential and Lancashire County Council's Youth Zone team to mark LGBTQ+ History Month;
  • Reorganised our public searchroom, creating a new exhibition featuring displays on Lancashire Treasures, Preston Guild 1922 and The Amazing Mr Mercer in partnership with the Museum Service, and our Great Exhibition family event;
  • Established a network of Local Studies Champions and staff training programme across Lancashire Libraries;
  • Supported the County Council's Project Search scheme for neuro-diverse young people, and the delivery of resources for history teaching through Lancashire Professional Development Service;
  • Carried out extensive audience development work to set the groundwork for new partnerships with local history networks.

Collections and Conservation

In 2022-2023 we: 

  • Launched external funding bids for two innovative collections and engagement projects, Clarets Collected and Keeping East Lancashire in the Picture (via the National Lottery Heritage Fund), and we secured the funding totalling over £250,000;
  • Created a new Local Studies team and welcomed two new members of staff to lead on the development of local studies collections and local history venues;
  • Received £35,000 from the Friends of Lancashire Archives to purchase new digitisation equipment and appointed to a new Digitisation Technician post;
  • Received over 140 new collections and the Friends of Lancashire Archives funded a new post to support cataloguing of unlisted records;
  • Worked with the Harris Museum to digitise and catalogue the Harkness Collection of 19th century ballads;
  • Produced a major new catalogue for the Lilford Estate Collection;
  • Secured the purchase of Preservica to deliver proactive digital preservation for Lancashire’s digital heritage.

 Lancashire Archives and Local History in Numbers

  • 5,882,260 views of images of Lancashire documents on Ancestry
  • 373,399 unique page views on Red Rose Collections and 517,687 unique page views on LANCAT
  • 11,128 documents produced for users
  • 1731 people visited to use documents in the searchroom
  • 4960 written or emailed enquiries including copying orders
  • 4368 followers on Twitter
  • 3795 hours worked by our Archives volunteers
  • 1345 attendees at our talks, events and engagement activities across 80 different events
  • 970 students from 25 Lancashire schools have explored aspects of their local history in bespoke sessions based on items from our collections
  • 200 Friends of Lancashire Archives supported us
  • 149 accessions of new archives were received

Lancashire Archives in our Visitors’ Words

  • “Oh, and by the way, Lancaster Archive and all staff are fab - I always feel welcomed and am never intimidated!)”
  • “… thank you so much for what was such an incredible trip, I'm still in shock at the amount of incredible material your archives hold, and I'm so grateful for the amount of time you spent sharing your knowledge. I really look forward to coming back soon!”
  • “… thank the staff for welcoming us last month. All 9 of us were treated as special guests from the U.S.  The staff did an outstanding job, they made us feel like we were at home with friends. We couldn’t have asked for a better reception in a very short period with such a rewarding outcome.”
  • “I really enjoyed my first session at the Archives, they were all very welcoming and they all made us feel like we were part of the team. I found the tour of the archives so interesting, and I felt very inspired. It reminded me why I love history and how people feel when they see something that's hundreds of years old. “