Warwick Mouldings Archive

Director: Dr Richard Morris

Address: Dr R K Morris, 36 Southbank Road, Kenilworth CV8 1LA, UK

The Archive is a collection of about 10,000 architectural profile drawings and provides an unique research resource for architectural historians, archaeologists and conservation architects. It was established by Dr Morris in 1978 to establish a national collection of mouldings data from major medieval buildings in the United Kingdom and to provide an objective context against which to evaluate studies which employ profiles as historical evidence. Chronologically the collection covers the medieval and early Renaissance periods (c.1050-1650), with the concentration in the 13th to 15th centuries. Geographically the material is primarily for England, with some holdings also for Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the near continent. Most of the profiles are from stone buildings, but brick and timber also have some coverage, which it is hoped to expand. The archive consists of measured section drawings of moulding profiles, mostly drawn at full size and from recording undertaken by Dr Morris over the past thirty years. Currently it is a paper archive, but the aim is to digitise the archive and develop content-based image retrieval software to search the data.

In his capacity as a specialist in this field, Dr Morris has provided advice to many national bodies and individual researchers, and he is currently a consultant to the English Heritage Windsor Castle project, St Albans Abbey Research Committee, the Nonsuch Palace project and the Coventry Phoenix Initiative (excavations of St Mary's Cathedral Priory site).

Enquiries about the Archive should be addressed to Dr R K Morris, at the contact addresses above.