Our archives are predominately the documents created by the Cathedral while pursuing its core purpose and activities. These documents are in a variety of formats including committee minutes, accounts, correspondence, photographs, property ownership documents, reports and publicity material. As the Cathedral was founded over 800 years ago and is still active today this means that the archives date from the medieval period to the 21st century.
In 2014 we decided to re-catalogue the archive collection following the rules laid down in ISAD(G) - the international standard for archive cataloguing. Before this the archives have been organised and catalogued in a variety of different lists and formats. In accordance with ISAD(G) the archives are now grouped as far as possible in series and sub-series (the level of description) in a hierarchical structure according to the function or use for which they were originally created. The top level groupings are called sub-fonds and are as follows: Bishop, Chapter, Foundation & Governance, Fabric, Finance, Images, Visual Arts, Volunteers. there is also a small group of documents which were not created at the Cathedral but by external organisations and individuals and which have been donated to the Cathedral Archive - these are grouped under 'Deposited Collections'.
Each top level grouping or sub-fonds has been divided into numerous series and sub-series. If you trace through these series and sub-series you will find the catalogue entry for the actual physical document whose level of description is 'file' or 'item'.