Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives

Not the type of nuclear that goes bang but might be of interest to some people.

Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives

Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives Opening 14th February

We are very excited to announce that the Nuclear and Caithness Archives will be opening on St Valentine’s Day, Tuesday 14th February 2017. The brand new, state-of-the-art building will be home to the archives of the entire UK civil nuclear industry as well as the historical archives of the county of Caithness. It is designed to hold an estimated 20 kilometres of records in ideal environmental conditions for generations to come.

The records of the nuclear industry date back over 70 years and include plans, drawings, photographs, film, microfiche and documents. These have previously been held at various sites across the UK including Dounreay in Caithness, Harwell in Oxfordshire, Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia, and Sellafield in Cumbria. The relocation will take several years to complete.

By way of contrast, the archives of Caithness date from the 16th century and have previously been looked after at the Caithness Archive Centre, a service provided by High Life Highland on behalf of the Highland Council. These historic collections will now be housed in the Nuclear and Caithness Archives where they will continue to be made available to members of the public for family and local history research. In preparation for the opening, the existing Caithness Archive Centre at Wick Library is closed from Tuesday 25th January, for two weeks, in order to transfer the collections to their new premises. Nucleus will open at 9am on Tuesday 14th February. The new opening hours will be 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Bob wrote:

My first job was at Dounreay as an Assistant Scientific Officer and my father was site architect from 1956 to 1963...

Next time I'm in Wick I think I will have to visit this archive...

Looks a very flashy building as is the one in the Inverness.

Caithness seem to have some interesting Home Guard records also, some appear on www.ambaile.org.uk/?service=asset&action..._item_id=undefinedAm Baile.

The Highland Archive have some police files, these include reports on wartime aircraft crashes. Last time I was there they had put an embargo on the one I wanted to see again (a death at a Canadian or Newfoundland Forestry camp) but I would think it might be a 75 year limit so reports from early in the way should still be accessible. One that I had seen previously is a war grave at Lochailort. A local booklet says that the family did not believe that it was their son's body so it was exhumed - the doctor had done these before so took a half bottle of whisky! This was not mentioned in the police file (big bundle of very thin paper), the local police officer had recorded every mark on the body and every detail of the clothing. It records a Liverpool detective visiting the family and their doubts but says the identification was confirmed from the laundry mark on his underparts which linked him back to the family in Liverpool.

I came across this on the Archive website

DOUNREAY – THE COLD WAR CONNECTION