Showtown History Centre remains closed
Showtown’s History Centre’s home is in the beautiful surroundings of Blackpool Central Library and is home to Blackpool’s archives, local history resources and heritage collections – a resource for local and family history as well as a place for curious people to uncover the stories of Blackpool’s past.
Since February 2020 the History Centre has been closed due to a leak in the roof making the space unsuitable to store our collections.
We moved most of the collection to storage with a small number of items staying in Blackpool to support the development of the Showtown museum. Our priority was to ensure the safety of the collection whilst repairs and investigations were carried out.
Following these investigations, the Blackpool Council team agreed that the damage to the roof was more extensive than they had hoped and due to the age of the building a full roof replacement and other repairs such as flashing and pointing were required.
We are delighted to say that the repairs to the roof are now complete but there is still work to be done before our precious collections can return. We thank you for your patience whilst we make our final plans for the collections to return.
In the meantime, we continue to provide access to the historic newspaper microfilms with appointments available between Tuesday and Saturday. We can also support a small number of specific newspaper related enquiries each week.
The library service is unaffected by the structural work and is open as normal.
Sign up for our newsletter
We understand that the delay to the reopening of the history centre is frustrating for those wishing to access the service and we’re keen to ensure that you receive the latest news as soon as we have anything to share.
To be the first to know when we have updates and news about the building works, reopening and the services offered by the history centre you can sign up here.
Access the collection - Newspaper Microfilm Appointments
Our microfilm readers are in operation on the ground floor of Central Library. Use of the microfilm readers is by appointment only.
If you would like to book an appointment to view our historic newspaper collection microfilms or have a specific request for a newspaper research enquiry then please contact us on historycentre@showtownblackpool.co.uk or call 01253 478090.
Appointments run Tuesday to Saturday, with a morning slot at 10.30am and an afternoon slot at 1.30pm. Appointments last for 2 hours.
The newspapers we have available are Blackpool Gazette 1873 – 2019, Blackpool Citizen 1987 – 2004, Blackpool Reporter 1999 – 2008, Blackpool Herald 1876 – 1919, Blackpool Times 1877 – 1933, Fleetwood Chronicle 1845 – 1873, The Green 1929 – 1983, Independent 1986 – 1990