Cumbria Archives
Preserving and providing the historical records of Cumbria

Ordering copies, searches and charges

What we provide

Searches

We can provide one specific and clearly defined search of up to 30 minutes per customer, per Archive Centre, free of charge.

Requests should relate to a clearly identified document, individual, place, event or catalogue reference.

Archive staff can help identify and provide access to relevant records but cannot undertake research projects on behalf of users.

To ensure fair access to the service, enquiries should be concise, specific and focused on information that can reasonably be identified from our collections.

We are unable to:

  • Undertake extensive or open-ended research enquiries
  • Answer lengthy questionnaires or multiple-part enquiries
  • Verify, analyse or interpret research undertaken by others
  • Review substantial quantities of information supplied by enquirers
  • Undertake detailed analysis or investigation on behalf of users
  • Respond to requests that exceed the scope of our free enquiry service

Where a request falls outside the scope of our free service, we may ask that it be narrowed, recommend a paid researcher, or suggest a visit to one of our Archive Centres.

For more extensive research assistance, details of independent researchers are available on our Paid Research page.

Digital copies of documents

We can provide digital copies of documents. Copies supplied will be for access purposes only.  If you require publication quality images or photographs of fragile or outsize documents, we shall refer you to our Digitisation Service

Charges for digital copies:
1 to 10 copies, £16.75 (minimum charge);
11 to 50 copies, £33.50;
51 to 100 copies, £67.00;
more than 100 copies at £67 per hour pro rata.

Charges are with effect from 1 April 2026 and a full list of our current charges is available. 

Copies supplied are for private or non-commercial research only. For commercial publication, please see the relevant section below. 

You will need to complete and return to us a copy order/copyright declaration form. Please do not do this until instructed to by our staff. If you need to pay for copies, our staff will send you a secure link to pay for the correct amount.  We use the UK Government GOV.UK Pay service which accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express and other major debit and credit cards. 

Alternatives to our copying and enquiry service

There are other options for you if you want copies of documents without using our services:

  • You can take your own photographs of documents free of charge (subject to copyright and physical condition of the documents).
  • You can take photographs of microfilm images or save images to your own memory sticks where this facility is provided.
  • If you need more extended research, you can contact a private records researcher to undertake work for a fee on your behalf. More details are given on our Paid Research web page.

We regret that we cannot provide a photocopying service because this may cause damage to documents.

Commercial publication and exhibition fees

We charge for the commercial reproduction or publication of images in broadcast and print. 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. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are not in breach of copyright.  You can view this scale of charges in our Media Agreement (PDF 165KB) (Media Agreement (Word 1427KB).