The National Archives Image Library

Explore and license images from our collection, spanning 1000 years of history

Welcome to The National Archives Image Library: a collection which spans centuries, continents, and walks of life.

Whether you’re looking for written documents, maps, manuscripts or photographs, you can search and download high-quality images via this platform and license them to suit your needs.

If you want help with your project, we are on hand to support you in finding the right images. Contact us at:
image-library@nationalarchives.gov.uk

Explore our curated collections: showcasing a small sample of The National Archives Image Library

How to use The National Archives Image Library

You can use this site to search over 80,000 unique images held in our online collection, either through using the search bar or browsing our curated collections for inspiration.

Whilst a vast number of records have already been digitised, our Image Library currently showcases represent just a fraction of the millions of records held in The National Archives collection. If you don't find what you are looking for here, you can search our full record collection, Discovery - the catalogue of The National Archives - and request specific images. Alternatively, you can arrange a visit to view and select the original documents onsite, or use a paid researcher to do so, via our search service - Paying for research at The National Archives. Suitable material can be marked up and transferred to the Image Library for scans to be produced to order. Production of new images takes place during normal working hours, carried out by our expert digitisation team.

 For more information on how to use this site, head to the ‘help’ section.

Image Quality, Fees and Usage

The images available to download from the Image Library are high-resolution TIFFs. Some files for large format documents will be extremely large. An option to select the file size appropriate for your purposes is provided at the point of download.

The Image Library supplies these high resolution digital images at a fixed fee of £38.75 per image. No further fee is payable for the purchase if required for personal use, research or study. Reproduction fees are payable for the use of images from The National Archives in books, magazines and journals, museum and gallery display, broadcast and film, and website use. Fees are scaled according to how the images will be used.  The total fee is automatically calculated at checkout, and any discounts taken into account prior to purchase. A full breakdown of fees can be found via our price list.

If you have any other questions about The National Archives Image Library, please head to our FAQs.

Get in touch

We are on hand to assist in finding the right images for your project. You can reach us at: image-library@nationalarchives.gov.uk

 

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