The county archive shuts to visitors in Aylesbury on 1 October and reopens above the Denmark Street Tesco in spring 2027. Deposits are already suspended.

Buckinghamshire Archives closes to visitors on 1 October and will not reopen until it gets to High Wycombe. The county’s record office is leaving Walton Street in Aylesbury, about 13 miles north, and moving into the upper floors of the Denmark Street building beside the Eden centre. The council says it will reopen there in spring 2027.

That is a six-month gap at least, and one part of it has already started. Since 1 September the archive has not been accepting deposits, a temporary suspension while the collection is packed. The council says it will still take in records where it has a statutory duty to do so, but only by prior arrangement.

The dates that matter

  • 1 September 2026: deposits suspended. Nothing new can be handed in without a prior appointment.
  • 1 October 2026: the Walton Street searchroom in Aylesbury closes to onsite visitors.
  • Spring 2027: the service reopens at Denmark Street, High Wycombe.

The council has not published a firmer reopening date than the season.

What you can still use while it is shut

The archive is not going dark. On its move page, the council lists four routes to the collection during the closure:

  • the Virtual Searchroom
  • the Ask the Archivist one-to-one online service
  • email to archives@buckinghamshire.gov.uk
  • telephone on 01296 382 587 during opening hours

The online catalogue, the historic photograph collection, the trade directories and the Second World War bomb site records all stay searchable through the archives service pages. If you have a research trip in mind that needs an original document in front of you, the window closes on 30 September.

Why it is coming here, and what it cost

The move is one strand of a project the council calls the Denmark Street scheme, which also delivered the refurbished Tesco that reopened on the ground floor on 19 February 2026 and will put the council’s own offices on the first floor.

The numbers are in the Cabinet report of 16 July 2024, which is the decision that let the scheme proceed:

  • Cabinet raised the capital budget from £11.26m to £12.26m.
  • The updated cost estimate at that point was £12.89m, £1.66m above the budget agreed the previous March.
  • £3.7m of Future High Streets Fund grant was allocated to the project, with a government spend deadline of 31 March 2025.
  • The rest of the increase was to come from the anticipated capital receipt for selling the council’s Queen Victoria Road offices, and from what was left of the grant.

The report is blunt about the priority. If detailed design had pushed the cost past the revised budget, officers said it would still have been possible to drop the office conversion and deliver only the Tesco ground floor and “the relocation of the Councils archive, which has been a longer term key Council deliverable”. The section 151 officer’s comment described the scheme as “delivering the key objective of the County Archive without putting additional budgetary pressure on the Council”.

The report also records that The National Archives was consulted on the plans, and that the council agreed in principle with Eden to use 100 rooftop parking spaces at no revenue cost: up to 70 on the second floor next to the new offices, with barrier control, and 30 unallocated overflow spaces on the third floor, which is little used on weekdays.

The office floor is sized for about 170 desks. At the time of the report, peak occupancy at Queen Victoria Road was 120, with 30 more staff still to move over from King George V House in Amersham, which closed to business in July 2024.

What it means for you

  • If you are mid-research, finish anything that needs a physical document before 30 September, or switch to the Virtual Searchroom.
  • If you were planning to donate records, you cannot until the move is done. Contact the archive first rather than turning up.
  • If you live in High Wycombe, this is the county record office arriving in the town centre, a few minutes’ walk from the station and the bus station, rather than a drive to Aylesbury.
  • If you drive in, the rooftop parking at Eden is for staff and is not a new public car park. Public parking is unchanged, and the Easton Street multi-storey is now being demolished. Tariffs are on parking in High Wycombe.
  • The council counter moves too. Council offices are due to open on the same floors in spring 2027, replacing Queen Victoria Road, which is allocated in the draft Local Plan for 150 homes: see High Wycombe planning news.

Sources