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Het Utrechts Archief

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From 18 June 2008 on, the Utrecht archives have two visiting addresses. Exhibitions are held in the Hamburgerstraat, where there is also a reading room and a shop. The location is in the former lawcourts in the city center, where the archive shares space with a hotel-restaurant. The archives themselves, with research facilities, remain in the building on the Alexander Numankade, a few blocks outside the historical center.

The Utrecht Archives (HUA) acquires and preserves the sources relating to Utrecht’s history to make them available to the public through its website, reading room, exhibitions, and activities. The collection contains items bearing on the past of the city and province of Utrecht, from the early Middle Ages to the present day. The depots contain over 20 miles of archives, and seven million scans can be found online. The library contains 80,000 books, newspapers, and periodicals.

The collections include archives of the State, the Province of Utrecht, the municipalities of Utrecht and Nieuwegein, church institutions, Dutch Railways, Utrecht country houses and castles, institutions, and individuals. There is also a section with visual documentation consisting of photographs, films, drawings, prints, and maps. Finally, the Utrecht Archives has a library with books, newspapers, and periodicals.

The collection’s finest pieces include: the charter of the city of Utrecht (1122), the document known as the Stichtse landbrief (1375), the Monumenta manuscripts by Aernout van Buchel (1610), original manuscripts of the States Bible, the oldest railway timetable, drawings by Van Deventer, Saenredam, Saftleven, and Grolman, photograph collections from the nineteenth century onwards, including Moesman, Hofland, and Van der Werf, and the oldest film about Utrecht (1917).

Alexander Roos, Marketing & Communications Coordinator (May 2023)

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