Work is now nearing completion on the new Glamorgan Record Office, which began construction in August 2008. It is situated on the Leckwith development in Cardiff, next door to the new Cardiff City Stadium [click here to view a plan of the site, opens in new window].and Capital Retail Park

The 4,500m2, state of the art facility includes a storage block containing around 15km shelving, enough to house all GRO’s existing collections and provide another 25 years worth of expansion space. This block has been constructed in such a way as to use the structure itself to create stability in terms of temperature and humidity, reducing the need for environmentally expensive air-conditioning.

The building will also provide: conference space for workshops, lectures, school groups; a public searchroom and user facilities; and a modern paper conservation studio where visitors will be able to see specialists working to repair and conserve irreplaceable documents.

Taking advantage of the infrastructure created for the new stadium and retail park, the office will be served by excellent transport links, both bus and rail. Accessed from Sloper Road, the site also offers parking for visitors and secure storage for bicycles.

Once complete, all of GRO’s archival holdings, which are currently stored at three different sites across Cardiff, will be united in the new facility. In preparation for this move, the collection is being packaged and bar-coded. As of August 2009 over 30,000 bespoke boxes have been made using a box-making machine and over 140,000 items have been linked to barcodes.

The Glamorgan Record Office in Cathays Park will remain open to visitors as normal during the first phase of the move, which begins in early November, and we will endeavour to keep any disruption to our services to a minimum at this time.

The office will then shut to visitors at Christmas to allow the final relocation to Leckwith, although we will continue to accept enquiries by email, post and telephone during the closure period. The new Glamorgan Archives building will then open to visitors early in 2010 – further details will be posted as they become available.

If you want to see more images of the new building, please go to our Flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/33508309@N02/