Devon Record Offices
There are three local archives covering the historic county of Devon, England. The Devon Heritage Centre (DHC) in Exeter is the main archive. It has a branch office, the North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple (established in 1988), which is the repository for records broadly relating to North Devon.[1] The joint service is run by the South West Heritage Trust under the name of the Devon Archives and Local Studies Service. In addition, there is the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office in Plymouth, run since 1998 as an independent archive service by Plymouth City Council, which hold records relevant to the area indicated by its name.[2]
The DHC is the successor to the Devon Record Office (DRO), established by Devon County Council in 1952. The DRO itself incorporated the Exeter City Record Office that had collected Devon's records since 1946, when it took over from the Exeter City Library, which had collected documents since the early 20th century.[3] In 2005 the DRO moved into a specially-constructed building at Great Moor House, Sowton Business Park, Exeter.[4] In March 2012 it became part a restructured Devon Heritage Service,[5] and the Westcountry Studies Library, previously housed in Exeter city centre, moved into Great Moor House – now named the Devon Heritage Centre – from Autumn 2012.[6] In November 2014, the joint services in Exeter and Barnstaple were transferred from the County Council to the management of the South West Heritage Trust (an independent charity, which also runs Somerset Archives and Local Studies), and were rebranded as the Devon Archives and Local Studies Service.[7]
Among the holdings of the DHC are the complete records of the Devon Quarter Sessions courts from 1592 until their abolition in 1971—this is the earliest uninterrupted series of such records in the country.[8] Other holdings include the records of the city of Exeter from c.1100; the records of the Diocese of Exeter (which included Cornwall until 1875) from the 13th century; Anglican church records for the whole of Devon from the 16th century; and the records of many of the major Devon families.[9] The National Meteorological Archive which includes daily weather reports for the United Kingdom from 1869 and many earlier documents is also part of the DHC.[10]
References
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