Ellis Williams is working alongside Cheshire West and Chester Council and Cheshire East Council on the creation of two state-of-the-art History Centres part of a transformative £21 million initiative to preserve and promote the region’s rich heritage.
The project, titled Cheshire’s Archives: A Story Shared, will deliver two landmark archive buildings in Chester and Crewe that reflect a bold ambition to reimagine what an archive can be. Purpose-built to house nationally and regionally significant collections, the new centres will combine cutting-edge preservation with vibrant public engagement. Beyond safeguarding over 900 years of history, they’ll offer welcoming environments for learning, exploration, and community connection.
From the outset, stakeholder and public engagement have underpinned the design process, ensuring that the facilities serve the needs of researchers, residents, volunteers, and visitors alike. The centres will feature flexible multimedia spaces, exhibition zones, and areas for talks, workshops and events, designed to foster interaction with Cheshire’s stories across all generations.
Key design principles include:
- Creating accessible and inspiring public spaces that invite exploration
- Integrating heritage and innovation, with digital storytelling at the heart
- Providing new opportunities for volunteering, learning and cultural exchange
- Maximising transparency and street-level engagement through active frontages
Environmental performance is a central pillar of both schemes, with low-energy design strategies supporting Net Zero Carbon operation targets. Climate-controlled archive spaces will ensure preservation standards, while carefully selected materials and form create civic presence without compromising functionality.
At the Chester centre, the emphasis is on collection storage and specialist services including digitisation and conservation. In Crewe, the form recalls “two books stacked atop one another,” with generous glazing, external covered spaces, and a strong dialogue with the surrounding public realm and Memorial Square.
Both projects presented significant technical and planning challenges from complex ownership issues to balancing archive functionality with civic visibility. Through collaboration with the client teams, local authorities, and planning bodies, Ellis Williams helped secure approvals and value engineered the schemes to remain within budget, despite industry-wide inflationary pressures.
Together, the centres are expected to engage over 200,000 visitors in their first decade and reach over 600,000 people through community programming and digital platforms.