Oral History Collections

Oral Histories are created by individuals, societies and organisations to document reminiscences. These can provide an insight into people's lives, social events or the inner workings of businesses. This sections provides links to the catalogues only. At present, the recordings themselves cannot be accessed via Cumbria Archives' website though some material is available via the British Library Sound Archive website. Where oral history recordings have been deposited as part of other collections of records, details can be accessed through the 'free text' search function of the online catalogue.

The list below is just a small selection of oral histories, owing to access restrictions. More will become available through digitisation as part of the British Library's Save our Sounds project. Some collections are not listed in detail and entries reflect available information.  Groups of records that have not been listed may not necessarily be produced in the search room.  Please check directly with the individual Archive Centres concerned.

Links to online catalogues of holdings:

Artspace: Around the Bandstand, Barrow-in-Furness Park

Cumbria Voices Spoken History Project

Dent, Sedbergh and Garsdale Oral History Society

Full of Noises, Barrow-in-Furness

Haig Colliery Mining Museum at Whitehaven Archives

Hidden Histories Shared Lives Oral History Project 

Kendal Oral History Society at Barrow Archives

Morecambe Bay Partnership

Sellafield Stories