Motorway Archive Trust

There is a very substantial volume of material which has been collected as part of the Motorway Archive exercise. Only a very small proportion of this appears either in the printed volumes or on the website. All of the material will, however, be stored in Record Offices, together with a catalogue of what has been deposited. This catalogue will appear on the website, and this page guides the user to the location of both the material, and the catalogue.

Visualisation of the British Motorway System: Policy and Administration

It is expected that the bulk of the material will be stored with the Institution of Civil Engineers. Details will appear here in due course.

Frontiers of Knowledge and Practice

The material is all stored at the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). Details, and access to the catalogue, can be found by clicking here.

Building the Network

The location for the archived material for a scheme in any Region is generally the County Records Office for the County in which it was built. In some cases, this may relate to the pre-1974 administrative County. For example archived material for the M6 through the former County of Westmorland is stored at the Cumbria County Council's Kendal Records Office.

In the case of records for the Midland and Eastern Regions, their records are stored at the Northamptonshire Record Office, where, in the early days of development of the Motorway Archive, accommodation was offered and accepted.

To locate where the archived material for a particular scheme is stored, follow the links to the scheme name either directly from the map or the "find a motorway" list on the "home" page, or through the Regional pages. If there is archived material stored for this scheme, then, in the left-hand column, there will be a link to "archive information". Clicking on this leads to a page giving the necessary contact information and access to the catalogue.

This list of material is still being developed, but is already available, partially or completely, for some regions (see below). As more becomes available, it will appear on the website. Where relevant material is available on the Record Office's own website, a link is provided.

Whilst the individual archives are generally related to individual schemes, most regions will include a separate collection of material which is of a general nature. This will incorporate many miscellaneous documents including such matters as broad Policy issues, general design standards and advice etc etc. The archive reference for these collections can be found by selecting the Region concerned from the Home page and following the link "Read an introduction to [Region name] and see the General Archive Information (where available)", which appears immediately under the Region's heading.

Be aware that not all Regional material has yet been deposited and/or catalogued. The table below indicates the current position for each of the regions:

Region	Record Office	Deposited?	Catalogued?
Scotland
Northern Ireland
North West	Cumbria: Carlisle and Kendal	Yes	Yes
	Lancashire: Preston	Yes	Yes
	Cheshire: Chester	Yes	Yes
North East	Wakefield	Yes	No
Wales
Midlands	Northamptonshire	Yes	Yes
East	Northamptonshire	Yes	Yes
South West	Taunton	Yes	Yes
London
South East	Surrey History Centre	Yes	Yes