Local residents

• Are you interested in finding out more about your home and your neighbourhood?

• What was it like for the early ‘pioneers’ arriving before shops, schools and other facilities had been built?

• How your own family came to move to the New Town?

The New Town archives have a rich collection of photographs, drawings, letters and brochures which bring to life what it was to move to and bring up a family in a New Town. These can be used alongside the other great resources including. that record offices hold parish registers, census, rate books etc. Contact via the box to get advice on what’s available, an archivist will be happy to guide you.

How were your family involved in the New Town? Perhaps they worked for the Development Corporation or for a builder or architect? Were they involved in one of the many clubs and societies? Did they work at one of the businesses that also moved to the New Town? We would be interested to hear from residents who have their own records which could compliment the materials we already hold. If you think you have material that we may be interested in, please fill in the form on the button below and an archivist will get back in touch with you.

Local history groups, heritage groups and civic societies.

The distinctive qualities of new towns are being increasingly recognised and celebrated in heritage and arts projects.

In Milton Keynes, the City Discovery Centre  and MK Gallery have created award-winning materials for families, including a children’s storybook about the new town.

In Peterborough, the archive was used to bring together long-term residents with newer arrivals who had grown up in eastern European new towns. One outcome was a touring musical theatre production about the new town.

In Harlow, the Art Trust used the archives to uncover the hidden history behind Henry Moore’s family group sculpture. This history was displayed in its 2019 exhibition, alongside art loaned by the Henry Moore Foundation. In 2022, Essex Cultural Fund supported an exhibition ‘Pram Town’: an audiovisual dive into the lives, memories and opinions of residents; featuring films, photography and oral history.

In Stevenage in 2023, Historic England supported the Museum to curate an exhibition ‘Talking shop’ exploring the stories of the New Town centre from the 1950s to 1980s.

These are just some of the many ways new town archives can be used in local history and arts projects. All of these would have been impossible without a catalogued archive. New town archives are rich in photography and other visual material that can be used in exhibitions, displays and publications. They are within living memory, making it easier to reach new people and engage them with local history projects. Many new towns are priority areas for arts and cultural funders, that can be used to support local heritage and arts initiatives.   

New Towns are no longer new, and many are undergoing rapid change in their built environments. These changes can put under threat public sculptures, murals and 20th century buildings that have heritage value. New Town archives can provide valuable insights about the heritage value of buildings and public artworks. Photographs and original maps and drawings can be useful evidence about how places used to look. The archives can also help explain the original intention for the designs.