We are very excited to announce that the Nuclear and Caithness Archives will be opening on St Valentine’s Day, Tuesday 14th February 2017. The brand new, state-of-the-art building will be home to the archives of the entire UK civil nuclear industry as well as the historical archives of the county of Caithness. It is designed to hold an estimated 20 kilometres of records in ideal environmental conditions for generations to come.
The records of the nuclear industry date back over 70 years and include plans, drawings, photographs, film, microfiche and documents. These have previously been held at various sites across the UK including Dounreay in Caithness, Harwell in Oxfordshire, Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia, and Sellafield in Cumbria. The relocation will take several years to complete.
By way of contrast, the archives of Caithness date from the 16th century and have previously been looked after at the Caithness Archive Centre, a service provided by High Life Highland on behalf of the Highland Council. These historic collections will now be housed in the Nuclear and Caithness Archives where they will continue to be made available to members of the public for family and local history research. In preparation for the opening, the existing Caithness Archive Centre at Wick Library is closed from Tuesday 25th January, for two weeks, in order to transfer the collections to their new premises. Nucleus will open at 9am on Tuesday 14th February. The new opening hours will be 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday.
