COUNTY HISTORY UNDER ONE ROOF IN £3.9M PLAN

Centre shut for 18 months as work goes on

PLANS for a multi-million pound project to showcase the county’s historic collections all in one place have been given the go-ahead.

Permission has been granted for the new Staffordshire History Centre, more than four months after the scheme was awarded a £3.9m grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The existing Staffordshire Record Office – on Stafford’s Eastgate Street – is set to have a four-storey extension added.

Meanwhile, a glazed link will also be created between the office and the William Salt Library to form a new entrance and permanent exhibition space.

But members of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-trent Joint Archive Committee were told the record office will need to be shut to the public for around 18 months during construction work.

The temporary closure, which was approved by the committee, is set to begin from March 2022.

Joanna Terry, head of archives and heritage at Staffordshire County Council, said: “It’s really disappointing to do that, but we simply can’t keep the service open while construction on the new history centre is taking place there. It’s simply not safe.

“It’s looking like late summer we hope to have construction starting on site. We will advertise the closure as much as we can.

“We will move to a temporary base, and we are looking for a town centre site so we can keep remote and online services going. We will have some limited access to collections, about once or twice a week.

“Importantly, our volunteer programme will continue to operate from the temporary base.”

Staffordshire History Centre will bring together three collections – Staffordshire and Stoke-on-trent Archive Service, the County Museum and William Salt Library.

Facilities will include modern reading areas and research labs, as well as additional strong rooms to provide space for a further 55 years of collections.

A new learning programme will be created for schools, alongside courses for adult learners, and there will also be a series of touring exhibitions and projects to bring the area’s heritage to communities across the county.

Staffordshire’s archives stretch back more than 1,000 years, including documents pre-dating the Norman Conquest of 1066.

One rare item is an Anglo-saxon charter confirming the foundation of Burton Abbey.

The museum’s archives include a nationally-significant set of carriages and the Douglas Hayward puppet collection, while the William Salt Library features rare books and manuscripts amassed by Victorian collector William Salt.