Our history

Cecil Bream and Arthur Vell opened Aldermoor Reprographics on 14 March 1961 in a rented unit on what was then the new Nettlefold industrial estate, with one planetary camera and a darkroom made out of a stationery cupboard.

The firm filmed rate books, deeds and parish registers for local solicitors and for the Borough. Cecil’s view, quoted in every company document from 1961 to his death, was that A record is a promise.

In 1974 the name changed to Aldermoor Conservation Services to reflect the growth of the paper conservation side. The strongroom was built in 1978 and extended in 1996.

Howard Bream, Cecil’s son, joined in 1971 and became Managing Director in 1988. He retired on health grounds in 2007 after thirty-six years with the company.

The 1990s were the busiest years in the firm’s history. By 1998 there were nine of us, and we had the best verification figures in the region.

Between 1997 and 1999 we undertook the largest single contract in our history, digitising and verifying the paper holdings of Nettlefold Borough Records Office under contract NB/RO/114 — forty-one boxes covering 1958 to 1991.

In February 1999 the Managing Director set out the position to the verification bench in terms we have kept: “The schedule compression is a matter for the board and not for the bench; nothing was concealed from the client that the client did not already accept.” — H. Bream, memorandum, 17 December 1998, 11.30

The studio was re-equipped in 2004 and again in 2016. We still run a camera room, because film in a cold store has a predicted life of five hundred years and needs a lens and a light to read it.