Photographic collection
The Historic Environment Record of Northern Ireland (HERoNI) has an extensive photographic record of over a million slides, prints, negatives and digital images.
The collections
The collections contain photographs of our historic monuments and buildings, industrial, wartime and maritime sites, and parks, gardens and demesnes. Photographs have been taken over decades during survey, excavation, conservation and research. Survey images of monuments and buildings continue to be created by Historic Environment Division staff through the course of their work.
McCutcheon industrial heritage collection
This collection consists of over 27,000 black and white photographs taken by Dr. W.A. McCutcheon as part of a comprehensive survey of industrial heritage sites during the 1960s. It also comprises the working notes, slides and papers created in preparation of his major work, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland (1980). This work involved detailed inspections, assessments and documentation of much of the material remains of 18th and 19th century industry and communications existing at that time.
University of Cambridge aerial photographs
Almost 1,000 black and white prints produced by J.K.S. St Joseph for the Cambridge University Department of Aerial Photography are available for reference. Mainly comprising oblique aerial photographs taken from 1951-1955 and 1963-1973, examples include panoramic views of landscape and scenery and individual elements such as prehistoric settlements.
John Seeds architectural collection
John Seeds was a Belfast–based architect who served as a representative of the Royal Institute of British Architects on the Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee of the Government of Northern Ireland from 1934. As a member of the Georgian sub-committee, Seeds undertook a survey of Georgian architecture in Northern Ireland from 1934-1942. This collection includes photographs (glass-plate negatives and prints) and official papers, letters and reports relating to the Northern Ireland Planning Advisory Board on which Seeds served as a representative of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects from 1942. The collection is particularly useful because it contains numerous images of Georgian architecture in Northern Ireland in the 1930s, many of which have since been demolished.
Richard Clarke collection
Dr Richard Clarke was an eminent anaesthetist based in Belfast, and a former secretary of the Belfast Naturalists Field Club. During the 1970s, Clarke undertook the recording of graveyards and gravestones within County Antrim and County Down, with particular focus in North Down and the Ards Peninsula. Photographs held as the Richard Clarke collection in HERoNI are the result of his survey.
Other collections include Professor James Curl's photographs, material deposited by the architectural historian Sir Charles Brett, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (UAHS), and GP Bell. Copies of selected items from the Hogg Collection, Welch Collection, Green Collection and Lawrence Collection held by other organisations are also made available