The archive stores at Dorset History Centre in Dorchester are 96% full. Novelist Tracy Chevalier narrates a film for the £5.28m project to expand them.

The stores that hold Dorset’s archives are 96% full. Dorset History Centre in Dorchester is raising money to expand them, and the novelist Tracy Chevalier has lent her voice to the campaign.

Chevalier, who lives in the Piddle Valley, narrates a new short film about the project. She is best known for Girl with a Pearl Earring and Remarkable Creatures, her novel about the Lyme Regis fossil hunter Mary Anning. She is a patron of Dorset Archives Trust.

“Archives open an intriguing and important window onto our collective Dorset past,” she said in Dorset Council’s announcement. “I am so glad they exist and are being looked after.”

The project

The project is called Past Lives, Future Proofed. The council’s project page says it aims to:

  • build new and bigger storage for the paper archives
  • keep them in secure, climate-controlled stores
  • improve the public areas of the building
  • carry out urgent work to preserve digital records
  • open up the county’s Quarter Sessions court records, which date from 1709

The building opened more than 35 years ago.

The money

  • £603,777 development grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, awarded in April
  • £3.8m full grant that the centre plans to apply for next
  • £5.28m total fundraising target for 2026 to 2031

The development stage runs for 18 months.

What the centre holds

Dorset History Centre is the county archive, funded jointly by Dorset Council and BCP Council. It also houses:

  • the county’s Local Studies collection
  • the Historic Environment Record
  • Dorset’s Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme

What it means for you

  • Volunteers wanted. The council says a large number will be recruited over the life of the project, for jobs from indexing to podcasting. The centre will advertise them on its website.
  • You can give. The centre needs donations to reach its target. Details are on the project page.
  • The centre wants to hear from communities whose history is not yet in the archive, the project page says.

Mary Anning is also the subject of a new exhibition at Dorset Museum from January. Our story on Mary Anning: Fossil Hunter.

Sources