Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service was established in 1913, and was the first county record office to be established in the UK. We hold a diverse range of local records, but we do not collect 'fine art' as such, leaving that to Bedford Museum and the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery. We normally retain surrogate copies of local paintings as transparencies or scans. Consequently, the few oil paintings in our collections have come to us incidentally, often with collections of papers. No paintings are on display, but they can be ordered from storage and viewed within a few minutes. Since the demise of Bedfordshire Council, early in 2009, the service has been hosted by Bedford Borough Council and jointly funded by them, Central Bedfordshire Council and Luton Borough Council.