The Archive Centre includes 12 million records

The Archive Centre in Martineau Lane, Norwich, will bring together the East Anglian Film Archive, the Norfolk Record Office and the Norfolk Sound Archive.

The film archive holds more than 50,000 films and videos from Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

The centre also includes Norfolk's priceless collection of ancient records, including the Broadland swan roll.

This 15th Century parchment shows 99 outline drawings of swans' heads, showing marks of ownership and owners' names.

The centre includes a purpose-built gallery and a dedicated exhibition space of international standard.

The Archive also includes historic seals and documents

David Hayman, who managed the archive project, said: "If you come in for some research say about farming in the 1930s, you'll be told not just about documents that are here, you'll also be told what film is here.

"And possibly what sound and what interviews there are, and that makes this a wonderful haven for research."

David Cleveland, the director of the East Anglian Film Archive, said: "The University of East Anglia's East Anglian film archive was the first regional film and television archive in this country, formed in 1976.

We have countless documents of national and even international significance, and now a state-of-the-art facility worthy of our holdings Dr John Alban, County Archivist

"The collection is the largest of any regional moving image archive in the UK.

"The archive has a new public viewing area in The Archive Centre, where copies of many of the moving images - from 1896 to the present day - can be viewed.

"The archive is now the most up to date regional moving image archive in Europe. "

'Exceptional collections'

Dr John Alban, Norfolk county archivist, said: "The opening of the Archive Centre is a momentous and long awaited occasion.

"The Norfolk Record Office has exceptional collections, spanning a millennium and underpinning the study of every aspect of Norfolk life in that long period.

"We have countless documents of national and even international significance, and now a state-of-the-art facility worthy of our holdings.

"The Archive Centre will provide secure storage conditions of the highest standard, thereby ensuring long term preservation of Norfolk's documentary treasures.

"At the same time, the building, via its search rooms, exhibition gallery, and learning suite, will also give greatly improved access to the archives."