Her Majesty The Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, officially opened The Keep, a new £19m historical resource centre located near Falmer in East Sussex.

At the opening event, the royal party met with staff and volunteer groups before The Queen unveiled a plaque to mark her visit.

Built by Kier Construction, The Keep is a major partnership project between East Sussex County Council, Brighton & Hove City Council and the University of Sussex and combines state-of-the-art storage for archives with excellent visitor facilities. It will eventually house over six miles of archives and resources dating back 900 years.

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Over the past few months curators have been moving and installing thousands of items from the city and East Sussex, including around 350,000 items from the Royal Pavilion & Museums and archives from the University of Sussex which include the Mass Observation and Kipling Archives.

Items moving from Brighton History Centre include local history ephemera, photographs, glass plate negatives and lantern slides, oral history recordings and topographical prints, newspapers, microfilms, and some rare books.

Prior to the royal visit, Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant for East Sussex, Peter Field, commented: "The Keep now houses the history and heritage of our county and I am sure that Her Majesty and His Royal Highness will be extremely interested to view some of the items, and really pleased to meet staff and volunteers."

(CD/IT)