Free Talks and Tours at the Historic England Archive

Talks and Tours 2024: The Archive team are in the process of deciding new dates for 2024. Please watch this space as we will be publishing dates very soon!

We are the public archive of England’s historic environment including architectural and archaeological records. We hold over 14 million historic photographs, plans, drawings, reports, records and publications, covering England’s archaeology, architecture, social and local history.

We are located in the Engine House, which was built from the 1840s and was formerly the Great Western Railway’s Chief Mechanical Engineer’s Office and Drawing Office.

Parking and accessibility

The tour will involve some walking, including up and down some staircases, so please take that into consideration when booking. The Archive is also quite cold, so you will need to bring warm clothing with you.

Unfortunately, we do not have parking facilities for the general public, so we would encourage you to get to the site via other means or use the Swindon Outlet car park (however there is a charge for this).

We do have limited access to blue badge parking if needed. If you would like this, please contact Aseye (Engagement and Volunteering Officer) at [email protected]

If you have accessibility requirements and would like to participate on the tour please do contact the above e-mail address in advance so that we can put the necessary measures in place.