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Success stories

No Bass Like Home, Brent (2020)

This heritage project put the spotlight on the reggae revolution that emerged from Brent in the 1960s and 1970s. It included recording 100 oral testimonies, the creation of a reggae history map highlighting key locations in Brent’s reggae history; and the No Bass Like Home Online Festival. The audio and video content, interviews and performances are now held by Brent Archives and Museum providing a significant resource for future work and creativity.

City of Culture artefacts, Hull (2017)

For the Hull 2017 archive the team also sought objects that would help tell the story of City of Culture through a proposed retrospective exhibition in 2027. This resonated with the creative team who passed across artefacts from set mock-ups, lanyards and iconic elements from events that would trigger recollections from visitors who participated or attended the event.

Stefan Skura, Knowsley (2022)

Some personal papers about Stefan Skura, a Polish national who migrated to England in 1947, were discovered 70 years later at a car-boot sale. For Knowsley Borough of Culture 2022 celebrations, the local authority archive service, which holds the collection, collaborated with Merseyside Polonia, a Polish not-for-profit organisation, on two exhibitions tracking the life of Skura and the composer and pianist, Frederic Chopin – placing their stories in the wider context of Polish history and migration.

The project provided an opportunity for the archive service to make new connections and share the diversity of the collections. Polish volunteers visited the archive and worked together on translating the Skura collection. The collection has attracted new researchers to the archives and will be exhibited at the Smithy Heritage Centre in Eccleston in St Helen’s which is Liverpool City Region Borough of Culture in 2023.

In Living Memory, Lewisham (2022)

Six community-led projects undertook primary research and gathered recollections to celebrate Lewisham’s diversity and heritage. The project, led by Goldsmiths (part of the University of London), empowered members of the community to tell their own stories, presenting them through traditional means as well as artistic and cultural activities and events. An online digital archive has been created and the intention is to deposit the material with the local authority archive service.

Next steps and further guidance

Whether your large cultural infrastructure project is in the planning stage, in progress, or has already taken place, the critical next steps are the same:

  1. Contact the local authority archive service. Discuss what material needs to be collected. If the project is in progress or already taken place, find out what material has already been secured (if any). Work with the archive service to identify critical gaps and key colleagues involved with the bid, delivery and creative teams.
  2. Introduce the archivist to these key colleagues so they can discuss the whereabouts of any content that can form the archive.
  3. Continue to collaborate with the archivist to ensure that relevant material is selected and retained. It is useful to get regular meetings in diaries to check on progress and share information, especially if you are at the start of the large cultural infrastructure project, as all parties will continue to become busier.

If you would like further advice, please contact Archive Sector Development at The National Archives: asd@nationalarchives.gov.uk.