Carlisle Archive Centre

Who we are

The Carlisle Archives Centre provides students with an opportunity to engage with history through lively and entertaining interpretation. Students learn about people from the past through shadow stories, costume and puppetry. As the stories unfold, students explore historical documents which provide evidence about people and places. The workshops and activities provide students with an insight into where history comes from and how to use original sources. By using stories about real people and unearthing archive evidence to underline that the people actually lived in the local area, the expectation is that students will relate more easily to past lives and times. The Archives Centre provides a range of workshops and projects which relate to popular school topics with the added benefit of exploring topics within a local context. Behind the scenes tours of the Archives Centre are also available. The Centre is keen to develop partnership projects with schools and carry out a number of intensive partnerships every year. They have recently developed a core programme of workshops which are open to all schools on the themes of Tudors, Victorians and WWII for KS2. They also provide resources to support Arts Award and Artsmark.