Former Gaydon military base to hold the nation’s film archive

The British Film Institute chose the site at Gaydon to secure all the collections in its national archive, which together represent a unique record of British culture, history and identity.

Containing prints and negatives from the early works of Mitchell and Kenyon to Hitchcock’s masterpieces and, most recently, The King’s Speech, the new store will prevent the collection from deteriorating and being lost forever.

At a cost of £12 million, the building, a disused military installation, uses green technologies to keep the films at a stable temperature of minus 5 degrees centigrade at 35 per cent relative humidity - the optimum conditions to inhibit decay and preserve the films.

Designed by Edward Cullinan Architects, the store has six large acetate film stores and 30 smaller nitrate stores in a building of just under 3,000 square metres capable of storing more than 450,000 cans of film. As nitrate film is highly flammable and cannot be extinguished once it catches fire, the building has been carefully designed with a special ventilation system that eliminates fire risks.

The project is part of the BFI’s Screen Heritage UK (SHUK) project, which launches in London’s Southbank on Monday and celebrates the culmination of four years of planning and work from regional film archives from across the UK.

Heather Stewart, SHUK programme director and creative director BFI, said: “Through Screen Heritage UK the film archives of Britain have joined forces to truly take film archiving to the next level. Film is an integral part of British culture and SHUK will ensure that we not only safeguard our film heritage for future generations but that everyone in the UK gets the opportunity to enjoy and benefit from it.”

The project is launching with the BFI and BBC co-production The Reel History of Britain, starting on BBC2 on Monday at 6.30pm.