HD1 3DH, Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
The Brass Bands Archive is the world’s largest archive dedicated to preserving global brass band heritage. The archive is on loan and is publicly accessible at Heritage Quay, The University of Huddersfield.
The National Brass Band Archive was born out of the collection of North West bandsman, Walter Ainscough. Embracing his Uncle’s passion for collecting programmes and music from the Belle Vue contest (now the British Open), Walter had steadily built up his own collection of interesting brass band artefacts and memorabilia. The Archive moved to Wigan above a Funeral Directors in Leigh, and over the years the collection grew and grew. The Archive received notice on the building causing it to close in 2018 with immediate effect and the imminent closure prompted the Archive’s Trustees to trigger a clause in the constitution passing custodianship of the National Brass Band Archive to Brass Bands England (BBE).
The archive reflects a broad range of experiences across the brass banding sector; the collection consists of well over 8,000 music sets, hundreds of vinyl recordings, rare instruments, trophies, photographs, contest programmes, publications, stand banners, historical artefacts and memorabilia/ephemera. It is forever growing as more and more brass banders trust us with their history by donating to the Archive.