Northumberland Archives holds the archives for the county of

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

. The archives are held at

Woodhorn Woodhorn is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Newbiggin by the Sea, in Northumberland, England, about east of Ashington. In 1931 the parish had a population of 219. The village is sometimes identified with Wucestre, give ...

and

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census recor ...

and run by

Northumberland County Council Northumberland County Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Northumberland in North East England. Since 2009 it has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority, having also ...

. The

Diocese of Newcastle The Diocese of Newcastle is a Church of England diocese based in Newcastle upon Tyne, covering the historic county of Northumberland (and therefore including the part of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne), as well as the area of Alston Moo ...

appointed Northumberland Archives their diocesan record office in 1966. The Woodhorn office preserves and makes accessible the archival records of the diocese and the parishes within the diocese. The parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials are frequently used by family historians. A list of the

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parishes and the registers which are available can be see
here
In 2018 Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn was awarded full accredited status by

The National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...

. The accreditation award is a badge of external recognition which demonstrates that the service meets nationally recognised standards. The full accreditation was reapplied for and awarded in 2021 and 2024.

History

established a Records Committee in 1957 to address the requirements of the

Public Records Act 1958 The Public Records Act 1958 ( 6 & 7 Eliz. 2. c. 51) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom forming the main legislation governing public records in the United Kingdom. It established a cohesive regulatory framework for public records ...

. At that time, the Council had a store of records in the basement of the Moothall in

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

in the custody of the Clerk to the County Council, E. P. Harvey. The first County Archivist, H. A. Taylor, took up the post in 1958 and started working on processing the records at the Moothall. William Dickson, the Clerk of the Peace (1844-1875), had previously arranged some of the oldest

Quarter Sessions The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts that were traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388; they were extended to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535. Scotland establ ...

records "...with care and no little artistic skill..." In a newspaper article from 1958, a need was identified for increased storage to accommodate the records likely to absorbed by the new service due to the break up of family estates and the pressure on legal firms to store their records. Estate papers and the records of legal firms still make up a significant portion of the holdings of the archives. In 1962 the County Council purchased the former Anti-Aircraft Operations Central Control building at Melton Park, which was formally opened by the

Duke of Northumberland Duke of Northumberland is a noble title that has been created three times in English and British history, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of Great Britain. The current holder of this title is Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of N ...

in 1964. The new building was described as "...in effect, a vast strong room partically sunk in the ground, walled, rooted and floored with reinforced concrete centrally heated and air conditioned." The

Record Office opened in 1980. The borough collection for the town is one of the largest archives that the record office preserves. Until 1978 the borough records were kept at Berwick Town Hall, they were then moved to council premises at Wallace Green, which had been Berwick gaol. A newspaper article from 1988 states that records were held in three former police cells. The record office temporarily moved to the Workspace on Marygate in 2015 and then to Berwick Library in June 2016. The county council opened a further repository in 1989. The Modern Records Centre on the Kylins estate in Morpeth was seen as something of an innovation, with Deputy County Archivist Bob Stewart, proudly announcing that their new computer would aid "...stricter control of records." In 2007 the Morpeth and Gosforth offices of Northumberland Archives merged and relocated to new premises at Woodhorn Museum.

References

County record offices in England Northumberland History of Northumberland {{library-struct-stub