The Hold, Ipswich: Exhibition planned for November

The keys to The Hold have been handed over the the internal fitting is soon to begin

Keys to a new £20m county archives building have been handed over and fitting out will now begin after a delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Hold near Ipswich waterfront, was mainly funded by a £10.3m Heritage Lottery grant.

It will house the majority of the Suffolk Record Office's collection and provide facilities for the university.

Suffolk County Council, which has pledged £5m toward the project, said The Hold would partly open in November.

Built at the junction of Fore Street and Grimwade Street, it stands opposite the main building at the University of Suffolk, which contributed £2m.

The project originally attracted criticism from Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds who held their own archives.

The spacious inside of the building is to be fitted out over the next few months

The county council, responsible for the Suffolk Record Office, convinced them the new building would "enable existing and new audiences to explore 900 years of archival material".

An agreement was reached that local studies units would still be kept at Lowestoft and Bury.

Paul West, councillor with responsibility for heritage, said the handover of the keys was a milestone in a very long project.

Work is still continuing on the site and the building should be ready for an exhibition by November

"We can get on with fitting out and that's a two to three month project. Then we'll have a sort of phased opening over the autumn. We hope to have an exhibition in November."

The archives were being boxed up by a team of volunteers, but they had to stop when the coronavirus lockdown began, but that is soon to resume.

Mr West was also looking forward to the archive becoming a real attraction for local people to explore the county's history.

There are plans to take exhibitions out to local schools and community groups.

Some vulnerable material is kept under environmental control and gaining access might take half an hour or more but the majority of items were available from the counter.