Records of Bath & North East Somerset Council (formerly Bath City Council)
This is single largest collection within the archives with over 86,000 catalogue records. It includes records encompassing all aspects, past and present, of the council's functions and responsibilities. Please note that there are various series of Council records which have not been catalogued in detail.
Records of Official Bodies
These include records of the Bath Union Workhouse, schools and colleges, Bath City Police, Bath Fire and Ambulance Service.
Public records
We hold records for hospitals, health authorities, Bath courts and Coroner's records for the Bath area.
Deposited and donated collections
There are over 1,000 collections we have received from individuals, families, businesses, organisations, societies, and communities which range from single items to very large collections. Examples include:
The Royal Bath & West Society
Bathwick Estate Company
Methodist churches
Rivers Estate/Manor of Walcot
Partis College
Assembly Rooms
Theatre Royal, Bath
Collections which are not on the catalogue include maps, photographs, civil parishes, building plans (not planning applications), and more recently donated and deposited material.
Local Studies
The catalogue includes most of the books, pamphlets and journals in the Local Studies collections. The main exceptions are the collections of rare books, bindings, and private presses. Images are available online through the Bath in Time website.
To request items, please provide us with a note of the author and title of the item, and the item number at the bottom of the record.
Please see our Research Guides and Collections web page for more information on the wider collections of ephemera, music, newspapers, maps and directories.
