Image Library project

Historic Royal Palaces has a very substantial Image Library. Most of the photographs are unique and there are many hidden treasures. A project is now under way to make this collection more accessible and useable in a 21st-century way, by digitising it.

Picture this!

Historic Royal Palaces has a very substantial Image Library. It is of historical interest and significance in its own right as well as being an everyday working collection. Most of the photographs are unique and there are many hidden treasures.

Tower

Queen Mary arriving at the Tower of London in 1949 to inspect bomb damage

A project is now under way to make this collection more accessible and useable in a 21st-century way, by digitising it, installing an accessible database and providing the means for users to search for what they hope to find. This section of our website will be regularly updated to show our progress.

Our collection

HCP Fire

The Hampton Court fire, 1986

A romantic stroll through the gardens at Hampton Court in the early 20th century

Containing approximately 175,000 images and growing rapidly, the collection dates back to the 1940s with some earlier items from the late 19th century.

The vast majority of the images are original photographs, mainly negatives and transparencies but with a growing number of digital images too! They document the history of five amazing royal buildings and include many iconic images such as the Crown Jewels, the Yeoman Warders, Hampton Court’s famous maze and the breathtaking canvases by Peter Paul Rubens at the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

Kew Front

Kew Palace

Detail of Queen Mary's Crown, 1911

These are just a very few of the many and varied images we have.

Staying alive

The conservation issues for the collection have been particularly pressing. About 5,000 negatives are in urgent need of help to preserve them for the future, as many are showing serious signs of decay.

Photographic conservators undertaking a condition survey of the collection

A condition survey has been undertaken to see how well the collection is standing up to the tests of time and to make appropriate plans for their long-term preservation.

The original photographs will be kept in a special store that is being designed to slow the process of decay, while the digital images will be accessible on an everyday basis.

The future is digital

Negative

A deteriorating acetate negative

We have already begun the process of digitising images, where there is a pressing need, and most new photography we commission is in digital form. Over the next five years we have a rolling programme of digitisation with database storage and a dedicated server, providing:

improved accessibility for external customers – picture researchers, academics, casual browsers – and for the commercial exploitation of our digital images
improved accessibility for staff within HRP
the capacity to add other image collections within HRP, both for commercial exploitation and to improve access to them

Hold the front page

It is key to this project that the Image Library has its own website and an efficient and attractive face to the world as well as effective search functions.
At present, we are tendering for this work to be undertaken. The digital path has been followed very successfully by most leading cultural and heritage organisations.

Accessible online image libraries have proved beneficial and commercially successful for our peer organisations in the culture sector.

Going live

Deer

A stag in Home Park, Hampton Court

Our project is under way; we have been developing our thinking and are beginning what will be quite a long process of making our collection digital.
In the past year, we scanned existing images, commissioned new digital photography and worked with specialist consultants. A substantial dedicated budget has been agreed to take this work forward over the next five years.
Soon, these pages will be linked to the search engine and database for our digital imagery. A beta version will be up and running in autumn 2012. For further information, please email photolibrary@hrp.org.uk

Image Library project