The Guide to Holdings provides an overview of the catalogued collections held at the Norfolk Record Office. It is arranged hierarchically firstly by group - Ecclesiastical, Local Authority, Private Collections, Probate, and Public and Statutory - and then, where appropriate, by sub-group, collection and series and can be navigated up and down levels. The left hand bar is not a frame but is always available and should enable navigation through the various levels of the Guide.
The catalogues are indexed in card indexes available in the searchroom arranged according to Names (Persons and Corporate), Places and Subjects.
Where available reference is made to other printed Guides such as the Guide to the Records of Norwich Cathedral produced by the Norfolk Record Office.
Printed calendars or transcripts of individual documents are also noted where known.
A general overview is inevitably incomplete and out-of-date. The Guide has the following limitations:
- It covers catalogued material only. Lists of accessions received by the Norfolk Record Office from 1994 are available on the Historical Manuscripts Commission website.
- There may be considerable delay before recently completed catalogues are added to it.
- Minor amendments to the searchroom catalogues will not be added to these pages.
- Collection and series level descriptions are included if currently available in the searchroom lists.
- There is no facility for finding index terms or keywords or searching across pages. (However the edit menu of your web browser may include a 'Find' command which can perform searches on the displayed page.)
The finding aids, original documents and microforms are available during advertised opening hours. The searchroom lists must always be checked for information about the availability of individual items:
- those marked ‘fragile’ or ‘unfit for production’ are not available for consultation in the manuscript searchroom.
- where microfilm or microfiche copies are available they should be used instead of the original document.
- the searchroom lists include the document reference numbers to individual items used when requesting original records from the strongroom.
- documents closed to public access either under the Public Records Act or by the request of the owner or depositor are highlighted in red. In some instances it is possible to make portions of closed documents available or we can direct you to the owner or depositor to obtain permission to view their records: please ask for further details.
Copies of most of our searchroom lists are held by the National Register of Archives in London. In cases of uncertainty, contact us before visiting the searchroom.
Updated: 27 July 2006.