Bath & North East Somerset Council

Explore Bath's world heritage

Explore Bath’s Heritage Other things to do in Bath

Research Service

We offer a paid research service covering all types of enquiries.

Charges

Personal research rate: £24 per hour.
Business research rate: £48 per hour.

These charges include VAT plus postage (UK and Europe) or airmail postage (overseas, countries outside Europe). They also include the cost of any copies supplied (where relevant).

How the Paid Research Service works

  • We will undertake up to one hour’s work before we request payment.
  • If you do not wish to spend this much, please indicate how much money you are willing to spend on the initial enquiry. This can be anything between £12 and £24.
  • Once work to the value requested has been completed, we will send you the results and a request for payment.
  • If you wish to pay for a further enquiry, please contact us again after you have paid.
  • If you would like to request an initial search longer than one hour, you will need to send payment in advance.

How to request research

Simply contact us by email or by post. Make sure that you:

  • tell us exactly the information you wish to find out
  • enclose any details that might help us
  • include your full name, postal address, telephone number and email address
  • enclose an accurate map if your enquiry concerns a house or land
  • mention any previous correspondence with us related to your current enquiry.

Payment can be made

  • By cheque, made payable to Bath and North East Somerset Council and in sterling currency. We do not accept Eurocheques and cannot accept payments in a currency other than sterling.
  • By credit or debit card. We can take card payments by telephone, or from researchers in person. At present we are unable to take card payments online, but we hope to be able to introduce this facility soon.

Copyright

If we send you copies of documents, we may need to ask you to sign a form for copyright purposes: a form will be sent to you and it must be completed and returned to us with your payment.

Our commitment to you

  • We will do our best to provide accurate and useful information, but there is no guarantee that relevant information will be found, and the Record Office cannot be held responsible for any mistakes in information supplied.
  • Enquiries are dealt with as quickly as possible, but at busy times it may take a month for a full reply to be sent.

We look forward to hearing from you.