Brighton & the Keep

Construction work on the Keep is expected to start this summer, with completion scheduled for 2013, and one of the Green Council's first actions has been to start eviction proceeding against the travellers illegally occupying the Woollards Field site (owned by Brighton & Hove). Notwithstanding that they have had free use of a pleasant field for several years the travellers are now refusing to move on, so putting Council tax payers to completely unnecessary expense: and then travellers wonder why they get a bad press.

The Keep has been specially designed to provide a safe home in controlled environments for all the archives and historical resources of Brighton & Hove and East Sussex and the special collections of the University of Sussex. It will house all of the current ESRO collections (including those now at outstores), the Special Collections from the University of Sussex including the Mass Observation Archive, Brighton and Hove local history collections (details see below) and the HQ and holdings of the Sussex Family History Group.

Material from Brighton & Hove that is going to The Keep includes bound newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets; rare material from the reading room; maps, plans and microfiche of parish registers (unless these duplicate the ESRO holdings); 2D ephemera and photographic collections currently in the museum store; topographical prints from fine art collection currently in the museum store (generally not accessible with any ease and currently not kept in the right conditions); all oral history recordings and related material and equipment.

If the Brighton History Centre continues in operation,  reference books and microfiches of newspapers, periodicals. and pamphlets, will stay in the Centre in Brighton Museum.    

The Keep will be well served by public transport from Brighton. With the completion of the nearby A270 flyover, opportunity has been taken to create safe crossing points from a bus stop at the junction of the A270/Stanmer Park slip road from which the Keep is approximately 400 metres distant. Falmer Station is about 15 minutes walk from the Keep site.