Nottinghamshire County Council set up a county record office in 1949 in the former Judges' Lodgings on High Pavement, Nottingham. This Georgian and Regency town house opposite Shire Hall, then known as County House, provided a suitable location for the display of many of the oil paintings now in the Archives collection. They were transferred to the new Nottinghamshire Archives building on Castle Meadow Road when the service moved there in 1993. The two main collections are of the Bristowe family of Beesthorpe and the Gilbert Cooper family. The Bristowe portraits form part of a bequest by Mrs M. H. Bristowe of Souldern House, Oxfordshire, in 1969 following the earlier deposit of her family records in 1961. The Gilbert Cooper Cooper portraits came from Nottingham City Library, the Archives taking over responsibility for their manuscript collection in 1976. Paintings no longer form part of our acquisitions policy and are no longer displayed in such appropriate surroundings as our former premises.