The National Archives
Move over book-worms
As a visitor to London, you probably have a busy plan. If you’re not a student, you probably would never dream of going into one of London’s national archives. For anyone interested in any record, or even just has a slow day and maybe wanted to hold a century’s old piece of history in their hands, to peruse it, rather than merely stare at one page locked away in a glass case, then an archive is for you. There is so much history that has yet to be digitalised, and therefore lost to the vast wealth of knowledge that is the Internet. This National Archives is a safeguard for these texts, which, in many cases, are the only copies in existence.
That’s some heavy stuff, isn’t it? London’s national archives are free to go to. They are free to use. In order to access any of their documents (ranging from tomes to scrolls to photographs) you need to watch an introductory video that describes practices you need to use when handling the documents and provide a proof of address. I applied for a reader’s ticket (what they call their library card) on premises. It takes 15 minutes, tops. Once you have your personalised ID, you choose a seat number, the document you want, and they deliver it to a cubby, just for you. If you’re not done with it at the end of the day, just return it to the cubby, and come back the next day!
The best part about the archives, I think, are how trusting the staff is of you. You get to touch these old documents. You get to turn the pages; you get to read handwriting that has been absorbed into this paper for hundreds of years. If you have any interest in the past, your family history, or want to research something for any reason at all, I suggest you go. There are documents there that don’t exist anywhere else from as early as the 1980s. Living history breathes inside those walls, and you have every right to use it, peruse it, and visit it.
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