What is the ARC?

The Northamptonshire Archaeological Resource Centre (ARC) is a state-of-the-art facility that acts as the publicly accessible archaeological archive store for the county. Our collections currently consist of over 20,000 boxes of archaeological material from around 3,000 sites across Northamptonshire with space for over 10,000 boxes from future excavations.

We store archaeological objects that cover the whole breadth of human occupation within Northamptonshire; from the Palaeolithic period, over 10,000 years ago, up until the late 19th century. Our collections are stored in humidity and temperature-controlled rooms where objects are kept in their ideal environmental conditions. This ensures that they will be usable for future generations.