Tours & Events
We run tours of the ARC and events throughout the year for visitors to come and see our collections and understand what we do.
ARC TOURS
We have free tours of the ARC for the public on most weeks. Tours usually take place two days a week between Monday and Friday.
Tours are run by one of our curators or our team of enthusiastic volunteers. They will show you the building, explain why we are here and what we do, explain how we curate the archives and show you some of the most interesting objects we have within our collections.
Tours tend to last between 45 minutes and 1 hour, though they can be longer as we are happy to try and answer any of your questions about archaeology. Due to space in the building, we need to limit spaces on each tour to 15 people. We recommend booking in advance to ensure you have a space.
Please be aware in advance that there is a chance you may see human remains during this tour if they are being accessed by researchers or volunteers. If this is something you are not comfortable with then please let your tour guide know and this can be avoided.
Sorry we do not allow pets within the store (guide dogs excepted).
Check tour date availability and book on our bookings page.
We run private tours for groups and societies. These need to be booked in advance. We do not charge for these tours, though we do ask if you could consider a donation to help us run the ARC.
These will follow a similar format to our public tours though we can tailor what we show for your specific group. For example, we may be able to show objects from the place your group is from.
We may be able to run private tours out of our core hours (e.g. evenings and weekends). For private tours we may also be able to accommodate groups larger than 15.
If you are interested in booking a private tour for your group, then please email arc@northnorthants.gov.uk to discuss with one of our curators.
Throughout the year we put on a number of ARC Open days where we open up the store so visitors can come see what is inside. Our ARC Open days involve:
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A chance to see highlights of our collection from all periods of history
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Opportunities to handle real archaeological objects
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Chance to wash real archaeological finds so that they are ready to archive
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An archive lottery where we will pull random boxes from the shelves for visitors to see
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Archaeology based activities for children
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Chance to ask our curators and volunteers any questions you may have about archaeology. We will try our best to answer them!
We can also offer local pop-up finds events in your community where we can bring archives that we store to your event and talk to the public about them.
We recently worked with a group in Grafton Regis to take an important archive back to the village for a heritage and fundraising day.
If you are part of an archaeology or history society and are interested in a similar pop-up event for your area, then please email arc@northnorthants.gov.uk and we can discuss with you.
