Making the new Leighton Archives – A photo tour

Our collection occupies a large space below the Sanctuary that formerly served as the Choir score library and rehearsal room.  We re-routed miles of piping and ductwork and levelled and re-tiled the floor. We updated electrical and HVAC systems to ensure consistent humidity and a stable environment for our fragile records and rare artifacts. We transferred and reinstalled our compact shelves from our old location and supplemented it with new shelving. We relocated our flat storage cabinets down here as well. With a new security system, we have a safe new home for all of our archival records and historical materials.

We loaded the complete Archival collections in our old location at Huron University College into rigid red plastic totes, stacked box on box on box. We spent a day or two just loading all 850+ onto trucks and driving back and forth to St Paul’s Cathedral, first staging everything in Cronyn Hall in a sea of red. Then, over the next week or so, tote by tote we moved and re-shelved the collection down into its permanent new home in the Vault.

We require considerable space to quarantine new acquisitions, securely house material awaiting cataloguing and store a myriad of archival supplies. In what was the children’s worship space on the Cathedral second floor we safely preserved its mid-century mural behind a new wall, installed ranges of shelving and now have ample room for all of our storage needs safely adjacent to our new public spaces.

In what was three adjacent offices, one with a small annex, on the second floor of the Cathedral, we created the public spaces of the new Leighton Archives. Dividing the middle room made an office for the Archivist and a small welcome/reception area which serves as the main entrance from St Paul’s into our new space.

Opening the latter on one side to a new staff/volunteer Workroom with its annex housing equipment for our growing digitization program, and on the opposite side into a new Reading Room for in-house Archives users and other researchers we connected the rooms which now flow comfortably one into another. With a paint refresh, upgraded electrical panel and air-conditioning throughout the entire second floor, new internet and phone connectivity, and accent walls on which we can display some archival treasures such as our collection of historical church commemorative plates, we look forward to welcoming you to the new Leighton Archives very soon..