The National Archives
Plan your visit to The National Archives
Many records are not kept by The National Archives, but by local record offices and other bodies. This website should help you decide if we are the right place for your enquiry.
Plan your visit to The National Archives in Kew
About The National Archives
We are making changes and improving the services provided at Kew. Find out more about the improvement programme.
Although it would be impossible to list all the different types of documents we hold at The National Archives, this should give you some idea.
The National Archives stores in excess of 9.5 million orderable items in 16 purpose built repositories at Kew. A further 3 repositories located at our off-site storage facility in Cheshire www.deepstore.com
hold some 28km of zero and low usage material. The environmental climate in all our repositories is monitored and controlled to ensure the archive is stored in the best possible conditions.
We hold the following:
Records of the royal courts, departments of state and other agencies of central government from the Norman Conquest to the present day. This includes:
- Central courts of law including King's Bench, Court of Common Pleas, Central Criminal Court, Assizes, Equity courts from the 12th century
- Medieval records of central and local government
- A large collection of maps and plans
- Records for family historians including census returns for England and Wales, wills, naturalisation certificates and military and criminal records
- Service and operational records of the armed forces
- Foreign and Colonial Office correspondence and files
- Records of the modern central government departments
- Cabinet papers and Home Office records
- Statistics of the Board of Trade
We also hold:
- The National Register of Archives, which holds detailed catalogues of all kinds of records relating to British history held elsewhere
- The Manorial Documents Register, which notes the existence and location of manorial records in England and Wales
Check the location of the documents at The National Archives
The National Archives stores a small percentage of its holdings of original records at an offsite storage facility. These records include:
- Documents which are also available on microfilm and microfiche at our Kew location
- Documents that have zero or low usage
Documents held offsite can be requested for viewing at The National Archives in Kew, if appropriate. Documents ordered before 11:00 will be made available within three working days from the request being made to the reading room staff. The normal off site document order is for three documents, unless a special request of up to 12 is made for a bulk order. Find out how to order documents in advance of your visit.
Plan your day
Allow plenty of time to find, order and read your documents. The latest time you can place an order is 16:15 except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when it is 16:45. Please also note that on Saturdays document ordering closes at 15:15.
You can only order three documents at once and after you have ordered them they can take up to 40 minutes to be delivered (sometimes longer in exceptional cases).
Guidelines for handling documents
You may find that you need to consult several different types of document during your visit. Be prepared by reading our advice on how to handle documents, and see examples of best practice.
Certificates of attendance
If you need a certificate of attendance you will have to sign the attendance diary for every day you study with us. At the end of your visit, ask a member of staff in the open reading room for the certificate.
Other points
- Children: Although we welcome anyone aged 14 or over, children under 14 may only be admitted at the discretion of the Enquiry Service Manager and provided they are supervised and accompanied at all times by an adult. Very young children and babies will not normally be allowed in the reading rooms because of the risk of disturbance to other users. You can find out about local childcare from the Children's Information Service for Richmond upon Thames, Tel: +44 (0) 208 831 6298
- Pets: No animals, apart from working dogs
- Smoking: No smoking is allowed in the building
- Food: No food or drink is allowed in the reading rooms
- Prohibited Items: You cannot use pens, coloured pencils or scanners, in the reading rooms. No more than one spiral-bound, stapled or sewn (not glued) notepad - up to A4 size. Loose sheets of paper may be taken into the reading rooms only after they have been stapled together at the security desk
- Mobile phones: Must be switched to silent mode, and only used for text messaging or photography
Virtual tour
Go on our virtual tour to see how our onsite services are arranged and where you need to go to find the information you are looking for.
Further information
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