Kresen Kernow ( Cornish for Cornwall Centre) in

Redruth Redruth ( , kw, Resrudh) is a town and civil parishes in Cornwall, civil parish in Cornwall, England. The population of Redruth was 14,018 at the 2011 census. In the same year the population of the Camborne-Redruth urban area, which also inc ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

is Cornwall's archive centre, home to the world's biggest collection of archive and library material related to

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

. Funded by the

National Lottery Heritage Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

and

Cornwall Council Cornwall Council ( kw, Konsel Kernow) is the unitary authority for Cornwall in the United Kingdom, not including the Isles of Scilly, which has its own unitary council. The council, and its predecessor Cornwall County Council, has a tradition o ...

and opened in 2019, it brings together the collections which were previously held at

Cornwall Record Office Kresen Kernow ( Cornish for Cornwall Centre) in Redruth, United Kingdom is Cornwall's archive centre, home to the world's biggest collection of archive and library material related to Cornwall. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and C ...

, the Cornish Studies Library and Cornwall and Scilly Historic Environment Record as well as in various outstores. Kresen Kernow was the name of the building in Alma Place in which the Cornish Studies Library was formerly held. The new archive centre, which has been constructed on the former Redruth Brewery site in Tolgus Hill, Redruth, has the same name. Kresen Kernow has more than 14 miles of shelving in total which will house around 1.5 million items, including over 100,000 books, 40,000 maps and 220,000 photographs and postcards. The project is funded by the

and

Facilities

Kresen Kernow is home to 14 miles of shelving in two secure strongrooms, purpose-built to care for over 1.5 million documents covering 850 years of history, including books, maps, newspapers, manuscripts and photographs. The centre also features digitisation and preservation suites to facilitate caring for the documents, along with learning rooms, exhibition spaces and reading rooms. The public spaces in the building are built in the former brewhouse of Redruth Brewery.

Background

The concept of a National Archive and Heritage Centre was born in

in the early 2000s. This resulted in the creation of the Cornish Studies Library in the town. The old brewery at Redruth was chosen for the location of Kresen Kernow, Cornwall's new archive centre, out of a shortlist of three sites. Various proposals were put forward for improving the facilities for Cornwall's archive and library collections, which were stored in different locations across Cornwall and beyond. Calls for a Cornish National Library, National Library of Cornwall, or Cornish National Archive were made. A Cornish archive and library facility also forms part of Cornwall council's Heritage Strategy for 2011-14. The Cross Group Working Party Review of Cornwall Libraries in March 2011 stated its aim to repatriate many culturally important manuscripts to Cornwall, for instance, medieval Cornish language plays like ''

Bewnans Ke ''Bewnans Ke'' (''The Life of Saint Ke'') is a Middle Cornish play on the life of Saint Kea or Ke, who was venerated in Cornwall, Brittany and elsewhere. It was written around 1500 but survives only in an incomplete manuscript from the second ha ...

'' currently held by the

National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales ( cy, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru), Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million boo ...

, or the ''

Ordinalia The are three medieval mystery plays dating to the late fourteenth century, written primarily in Middle Cornish, with stage directions in Latin. The three plays are (The Origin of the World, also known as , 2,846 lines), (The Passion of Christ ...

'' held by the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

. The possibility of getting the ''

Prophecy of Merlin ''Prophecy of Merlin'' (''Prophetia Merlini''), sometimes called ''The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings'', is a 12th-century poem written in Latin hexameters by John of Cornwall, which he claimed was based or revived from ...

'' from the

Vatican Archives , seal = Seal of the Vatican Secret Archives.svg , seal_width = 200 , seal_caption = Former seal of the Vatican Apostolic Archive , logo = , formed = , jurisdiction = , headquarters = Cortile del Belvedere, Vatican City , coordinates ...

has also been mooted. It is agreed that the library of Joseph Hambley Rowe, currently held by Redruth Library, will go to a National Library of Cornwall when one is set up. Towns were asked to submit proposals to house the new archive centre with the former

Devenish Brewery Devenish Brewery, also known as J. A. Devenish & Co. Ltd, was a brewery in Weymouth, Dorset, Weymouth, Dorset, England, that was founded in 1821 by William Devenish. It primarily operated from Weymouth's Hope Square, but also had a facility at Re ...

site in Redruth being chosen in 2012. It was proposed by

's Community Overview and Scrutiny Committee that a new building costing between £8-12 million is constructed. The new facility was named as one of ten cultural projects adopted by Cornwall Council's cabinet, others include a

National Theatre of Cornwall The National Theatre of Cornwall, or Cornish National Theatre, is a new theatre company proposed by Cornwall Council. Culture strategy It is one of ten cultural projects proposed as part of a five-year culture strategy agreed upon by Cornwall Cou ...

, and an expansion to the

Tate St Ives Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture ...

art gallery. In 2013 the National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded Cornwall Council a grant to begin developing the project and to carry out consultation. The following year, groundworks were carried out on site, funded by the

European Regional Development Fund The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is one of the European Structural and Investment Funds allocated by the European Union. Its purpose is to transfer money from richer regions (not countries), and invest it in the infrastructure and se ...

, to ensure it was suitable for construction work to begin. In spring 2015 Cornwall Council submitted a bid for £11.7 million to the

to build the archive centre, designed by architects Purcell, and for an accompanying programme of events and activities. The award was granted in summer 2015, the largest ever to be given to an archive project. Midas Construction started on site in autumn 2016 and finished building Kresen Kernow in 2019.

Cornwall Record Office

Cornwall Record Office (CRO), part of

, was situated at Old County Hall in

Truro Truro (; kw, Truru) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its ...

and is the main repository for the historical archives of

, United Kingdom. The Old County Hall site closed in September 2018 to enable staff to prepare the collections for their move to Kresen Kernow, which was due to open in 2019. Cornwall County Council was persuaded by

Kenneth Hamilton Jenkin Alfred Kenneth Hamilton Jenkin (29 October 1900 – 20 August 1980) was a British historian with a particular interest in Cornish mining, publishing ''The Cornish Miner'', now a classic, in 1927. Birth and education He was born in Redruth on 2 ...

and others to set up Cornwall Record Office in the 1950s.Justin Brooke
‘Jenkin, (Alfred) Kenneth Hamilton (1900–1980)’
''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 30 December 2008. Today its three and a half miles of shelving holds millions of individual

historical documents Historical documents are original documents that contain important historical information about a person, place, or event and can thus serve as primary sources as important ingredients of the historical methodology. Significant historical documen ...

, including

deed In common law, a deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions, sealed. It is commonly associated with transferring ...

leases A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

manorial Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes forti ...

records,

parish registers A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), ma ...

, correspondence and diaries,

map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...

s and plans,

council A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...

records and

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

; many of these relating to

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

and most other aspects of life in Cornwall. The documents range in date from the mid-12th century right up to the 21st century and they comprise an exceptionally valuable resource for

local historians Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

, family historians,

ecclesiastical {{Short pages monitor