For more information about how searching works, examples of searches and what you may find, see About Searching.
This is a summary list of the results found describing the photographs or documents relevant to the search terms you used. To see the full record, or a larger version of any online image, click on the Reference Number shown.
To see the full record and a larger version of any online image, click on the Reference number shown.
The full record gives more details if available. This will vary from record to record, but may include an online image, a note of people or organisations linked to that item (e.g. the photographer’s name), the viewpoint (e.g. exterior or interior) and whether an image is colour or black and white.
The Summary search results are shown in reference number order. There is no weighting of results in terms of what is the most likely match to the search term(s)
The Date refers to when the photograph or document was created. For example, a photograph taken in 1952 of a church built in 1350 would have the date of 1952.
The Format describes what is stored in the archive. For example, for a photograph it may be a photograph (negative) or a photograph (print). For a document it may be a report or a measured drawing. It may also refer to a File.
The Place may be the address of a building in a photograph, or the location of an archaeological site.
You'll find that some address information includes counties and parishes in use before 1985, so, for example, Avon and Humberside appear as counties.
Archaeological sites will usually have a National Grid Reference (e.g. TQ 123 456).
Some records have more than one geographical location attached.
If, when you get results you think you may like to look at them again in the future you can save an individual result in Favourites by pressing the Add to favourites button.
To save Favourites you must be registered for a Heritage Passport and logged in.
Your results are may include records with a reference number prefixed BF e.g.: BF088118 Barratt Shoe Factory, Kingsthorpe Road, Northampton. The prefix BF stands for Building File.
Think of a building file as a folder or box which contains a number of items relating to an individual building. You'll usually find exterior and interior photographs, but there may also be reports about the history and development of the building, plans and other information. Sometimes the file can contain a number of sets of photographs taken at different times reflecting changes in the life of the building.
English Heritage Archives displays catalogue entries describing mainly photographs, usually of historic buildings. Drawings and plans of buildings and archaeological sites, reports and estate sales particulars can also be found.
Records relating to English Heritage (The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission) as an organisation are not included on the website, most are held in The National Archives.
If you can't find what you're looking for please Contact Us.
We don't hold birth/marriage/death certificates, baptism, census records or details of memorials. However, we often have photographs that can add depth to family history research, such as a photograph of the church where someone was christened or married, or the mill where they worked.
Although we do have photographs of people such as gardeners, servants or factory workers, we rarely know their names. We have photographs of large country houses, but we don't have household records such as the names of owners or their employees.
We hold over 2.5 million aerial photographs covering most of England but you’re only able to see a few online.
Our Archive Services team will carry out searches for you. Contact us giving your name and address and the Ordnance Survey Grid reference or address of the site of interest and we will contact you with more information.
You can order copies of individual photographs or documents online. You do this from Summary search results, Full record or Favourites by pressing the Add to Basket button. You must be logged in to Heritage Passport to order.
We'll let you know the cost of your order before processing it. We'll send an invoice for the cost which you can pay by VISA, Maestro, Mastercard, American Express or cheque.
It’s not always possible to know what the total cost of an order will be until we’ve looked at the archive items you’ve ordered. Due to the fragile nature of some of the items in the archive we may not be able to copy it for you or there may copying restrictions. Or if the order relates to a group of items (see FAQ What might be in a file?) we don’t know how many items we’d need to copy. So we will always confirm with you exactly what an order will consist of and how much it will cost before processing it and sending you an invoice.