MOVING house can be a daunting business at the best of times, so spare a thought for the mighty leap performed by Hereford Archive & Research Centre in shifting centuries’ worth of history to a brand new home in Rotherwas.

Two-and-a-half years ago the service moved lock, stock and barrel from its familiar setting in Harold Street, bearing records, maps and documents dating back 1,000 years. During that busy six-week period in 2015, Herefordshire’s past was on the move, crossing the River Wye to a state of the art home in Fir Tree Lane where all that written history can be preserved in secure storage with carefully monitored temperatures.

What’s more, there’s plenty of parking for all those who beat a path to HARC, hungry to grow family trees, study parish records, conduct scholarly research, and generally learn more about city and county. There’s even a keen uptake for the study of wills in the archives.

The old military barracks, where senior archivist Rhys Griffiths and his team toiled to maintain records, was beloved by a certain number of visitors. But to be fair, the National Archive did not hold such a romantic view.

Temperatures remain constant in the new award-winning building, with energy running costs significantly less because of its cutting edge ‘passivhaus’ design. Hereford’s new county archive – also housing the archaeology unit, historic environment record and biological records – is even inspiring the likes of Lambeth Palace and the Imperial War Museum.

All the archive collections were stock-checked, cleaned, packaged and re-boxed where necessary before the big move. Just to get an idea of the massive undertaking, staff loaded 17,500 boxes, 10,000 volumes and 5,000 maps for the journey to Fir Tree Lane.

Any concerns that the out-of-town site might deter those hungry for history were quickly dispelled. A steady stream of people is still coming in to conduct research here, and an extra bus service has been laid on too.

The senior archivist points out that the oldest record held here dates back over 1,000 years. A title deed presenting the Garnons estate to a member of the Baskerville family has been preserved from the 12th century. “It would have been a bit like the mafia: come and protect me at Eardisley Castle and I’ll give you this estate,” he explains.

The newest item is not so easy to pinpoint. “This is subjective, the point at which something is no longer created.”

Electronic records pose a challenge in themselves. “There is a threat with future information, a need to protect against obsolescence,” says Mr Griffiths. For instance, floppy discs are not readable any more, but a system will be introduced for storing information long-term.

The centre, with its nine members of staff, would not run so smoothly without its army of volunteers. “There are lots of projects we would never have time to do without volunteers,” says Mr Griffiths. An index of wills allows visitors to access copies. “This is very popular,” he points out. There is also a preponderance of calls for information about family history and discovering the background of people’s homes.

Helping with searches for detail about “more abstruse” subjects can also be all in a day’s work for the Hereford archivists. “For instance, we have a Chinese post-graduate student wanting to look through the registers of medieval bishops,” says Mr Griffiths.

He has his own favourite piece of history within the county archive. It’s a letter written by John Hungerford Arkwright of Hampton Court, Hope-under-Dinmore, great-grandson of the cotton-spinning industrialist, Sir Richard Arkwright.

“There’s a picture of him looking stern and Victorian in his regalia,” he explains. “But the letter from Algiers refers to his son, ‘My Dear Little Pinkie” and he has tenderly painted little figures.

“To me it represents the surprises you get from archives, it’s a rare insight into the person.”

He continues: “Archives are really about people and when you take the people out it divests them of interest.”

When you spend a little time browsing the archives, it soon becomes evident that Herefordshire, its people and places throughout the ages, have found a safe harbour for the future.