Guide for creatives

Archives are a rich source of inspiration for many creatives interested in the histories of people and place – artists, writers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians, designers and producers.

But it can be difficult to know where to start. 

To help, we’ve put together a new guide to the Essex Record Office for creatives. The guide covers how to search, access, and use the archives, what we can offer, case studies, and inspiration from the collections. 

If you haven’t come across us before, the Essex Record Office is the county archive for Essex. We’re based on Wharf Road in Chelmsford, where we preserve nearly 1,000 years of Essex history. That includes all sorts of records, from medieval charters to twenty-first century digital files. You can search the archives on our catalogue, Essex Archives Online, and access them either online or in-person in our searchroom.

As visual, material, textual objects, the archives preserved at the Essex Record Office can tell many different stories. We hope that this guide will help you find something that inspires you in your creative practice.  

In turn, creative interpretations of the archives can give us new ways of understanding them. They also help to share them with a wider audience and open up a conversation about what has been preserved from our past - and what we should preserve for the future. 

We’re thinking of the guide as a work in progress - let us know if you think we’ve missed anything that would be useful to know! 

Please note that the charges given in the guide are accurate for 2024-25, and may change in future.

If you are part of a creative network or studio and would like a physical copy of the guide, please get in touch.

Access the guide online here.