The Hampshire Records Office is located at Sussex Street It opens daily, Monday through Saturday at 9:00am. It closes at 5:00pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 7:00pm on Thursday, and at 4:00pm on Friday. The entrance is near the corner of Sussex Street and Station Road. The Winchester railway station is a few hundred meters away.The office collects archives related to Hampshire County and the families of Hampshire County. These include parish registers from 1536 to date, Bishops’ transcripts from the 1790s to the 1850s, non-conformist registers from 1676 to date, indexes of births, marriages, and deaths from 1837-1992, census returns from 1841-1901, wills from the 1400s to 1901, national probate calendars from 1858-1952, cemetery registers for the last two centuries, electoral registers from 1889-2002, newspapers, school log books and admission records, tithe maps, and Hampshire Constabulary policemen from 1840-1928.It also maintains film and sound archives related to southern England. Special collections include the Winchester Bisphopric collection (pipe rolls containing medieval historic news), the Winchester Cathedral collection (medieval manoral records), the Winchester City archives (beginning from its development in the 12th century), and the Wessex Film and Sound Archive. 15,000 documents, including 10,000 photos and the film and sound archives have been digitized and are available online. Because of the age of materials and previous poor handling, most documents are kept in acid-free materials and stored in climate controlled rooms. On site instruction and supervision are given to ensure that documents are not further damaged by those reviewing them.
Hampshire County is located on the southern coast of England and contains the former capital of England, Winchester City. It has many seaside resorts and two large ports, Portsmouth and Southampton. Hampshire County was the home of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. It remains one of the largest counties in England despite losing much of its land to government reorganization throughout the years. It is an affluent county with significantly less unemployment than other areas of England.
