Cumbria Archives
Preserving and providing the historical records of Cumbria

About Cumbria Archives

Cumbria Archives is a local government archive service in north west England, provided by Cumberland Council and Westmorland and Furness Council, and created as part of the major reorganisation of local councils in Cumbria in 2023.  Between 1974 and 2023, we were Cumbria Archive Service, a department of Cumbria County Council. Before 1974, the service was known as the Joint Archives Service, provided by Cumberland County Council, Westmorland County Council and Carlisle City Council, and established in 1960. Discover more information about the history of our service from 1800. 

We provide:

Find out more below about our publications and forms.

Cumbria Archives policies:

Cumbria Archives vision: Your history, your place - be part of it - statement (PDF 204KB)

Researcher Declaration: Privileged Access Agreement form (PDF 61KB) that should be completed/submitted by academic researchers requiring access to closed records before they visit Cumbria Archives.

Copyright Forms: 

Media Licence with charges for commercial publication or exhibition: agreement to be used for broadcast of Archive Service resources, with scale of charges for publication of images in broadcast, print and on-line:

*Aside from copies for commercial publication, copies supplied are for private or non-commercial research only and cannot be published without obtaining copyright clearance and paying the appropriate reproduction fee to Cumbria Archives. Publishing includes reproducing material obtained from our holdings on the internet, in a book or periodical, in an exhibition, and broadcast on television or radio.

The charges above are with effect from 1 April 2024 and a full list of our current charges (PDF 48KB) is available.