Our aim is to preserve, promote and value the knowledge of the county but also to provide access to material for all to enjoy. Our collection can be searched using Wiltshire Libraries’ online catalogue (choosing the branch ‘Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre’).

The Memory Box Reading group meets on the first and third Wednesday of the month, 2-3.30pm. You can find out more here

Our Memory Box Reading group podcasts are now also available online, read by the group’s organiser, Local Studies Lead Julie Davis, focussing on local history and illustrated with interesting images.

If you’d like to spend some time exploring online heritage resources, our suggestions include Know Your Place.

Our award winning Wiltshire Community History website is also free to view.

With Wiltshire Local Studies you can find out what life was like in Wiltshire’s towns and villages and how our communities have changed over time; about the people who lived in them, the houses they lived in, events that happened and the shops and businesses which have operated over the years.

You will find fascinating articles, stories, images and much more besides.

We also have a general reference collection; a great resource for reading around a topic to fill in those important facts and references. Our general collection includes the Clergy List, Alumni Oxonienses and Cantabrigienses, Burke’s Peerage and Landed Gentry, English Historical Documents, The Cambridge Social History of England, the Dictionary of National Biography, Who was Who, books on landscape studies, history, archaeology and genealogical guides.

Our map collection contains Ordnance Survey maps of various editions, reproductions of maps from the 16^th to 19^th centuries, Goad Town Plans, geological and specialist maps.