Key details
Date of development: 2019
Cost: £5 million
Who funded it: Cambridgeshire County Council
Case study themes
Service sustainability, environmental sustainability, accessibility
Project summary
An ongoing problem with mould and a deadline from The National Archives to urgently improve storage conditions motivated Cambridgeshire Archives’ long-term hunt for new premises.
When a local bowling alley in Ely came up for sale, the council’s archive and property teams visited and could see its potential. Essentially a large unit with public facing areas and an incredibly flat floor (thanks to the bowling lanes), it had good transport links and a car park. This was a big improvement compared to the current premises at Shire Hall in Cambridge.
Cambridgeshire County Council purchased the bowling alley and converted it to house the archive collections. Furthermore, the Ely district registrars use the archive search room for wedding ceremonies when the archive is closed.
The exterior of Cambridgeshire Archives. The building was previously a bowling alley.
Challenges and opportunities
Ely is prone to flooding. Even though the archive is close to the railway line and local pumps, there was still concern about the potential damage from a flood. The solution was to raise the bowling alley floor to the projected 100-year flood line. The contractor commented that they had never poured so much concrete into a single internal space!
It was challenging to close the service for long enough to carry out the removal work, because local Councillors were understandably not happy about having a public service unavailable for a long period of time. Additional temporary staff were needed to make sure that the work could be completed on time and to the right standards.
Outcomes
The collection is now more accessible than ever. Focusing on preserving the collection has been crucial to keeping it accessible. For example, the team spent considerable time removing mould from documents before transferring to the new storage areas.
The repurposed building feels like a new build. Apart from a display case featuring bowling memorabilia in the foyer, there is no indication of what the building once was. Feedback from visitors is excellent.
The search room is so flexible it can be used for wedding ceremonies. As well as being an archive service, the building is the designated centre for notifications of births, marriages and deaths for Ely. Registrars are on site for appointments and registrations – when the archive service is closed to the public, they can use the search room space to conduct marriage services. Search room tables are on wheels so that they can be stored away and replaced by seating for guests. Computers and bookcases are hidden by screens and drapes.
Careful diary planning means the archive team can still use the space on closed days (Mondays and Fridays), as weddings tend to take place over designated weekends to avoid clashes.
The searchroom at Cambridgeshire Archives in Ely. © Cambridgeshire County Council.
What did you learn from the process?
Thanks to the development of a barcode system during a previous refurbishment, the team were ready for the 45,000 boxes waiting to move to their new home in Ely. This experience meant the team started barcoding as early as possible so the task was completed on time. All the barcodes were added to the archive management system, so locations are easy to manage and everything is stored in an appropriately sized place.
A concrete floor was laid in the digitisation studio to help reduce vibration from the nearby railway line. Concrete flooring should have also been used in the conservation studio as this would have allowed heavier equipment to be installed in the room.
Once the team had moved in and started using the space, they saw that some minor design changes should have been made to the plan. For example, the plant room is actually too large but at the design stage the size of the plant to be installed was unknown. Similarly, there is little storage space for equipment such as display boards, so the extra space would have been better used for non-archival storage.
Mobile shelving in the strong room © Cambridgeshire County Council.
To maximise storage space, two very long blocks of mobile shelving with one aisle have been installed within each room in the store. This means that there is a lot to move when winding the shelves. The shelves might have been more manageable in three shorter blocks with two aisles, with more space for long, rolled items and flat map storage.
What is one piece of advice you would give others in a similar position?
Keep the project as simple as possible. Compared to previous projects, this scheme worked because it only focused on finding a solution to one problem – that the archive accommodation was so unsuitable that it was having a detrimental effect on the collections. Previous schemes involving new archive premises had been wrapped up in larger projects that always became too complex or expensive.
In terms of advocacy, it was useful to have the deadline to improve storage conditions imposed by The National Archives. This meant that a single issue such as mould was serious enough to require action.
How will this work be developed in the future?
Prioritising the accommodation of the collection and getting the public space right means that the service is now in a strong place to develop in new ways. For example, planning public events and activities to encourage new people to use the collection. Getting the space right means that everything else will follow.
Find out more
Visit the Cambridgeshire Archives website