A PRICELESS and inreplaceable collection of photographs showing the changing face of Worcester will be handed over to a new home.

The final set of 2,000 archive images of the Faithful City will be presented to specialists at the Hive after a five-year project to restore, digitise and catalogue the biggest single collection of Worcester photographs yet amassed.

Volunteers from the Tudor House Museum, Friar Street, have restored more than 6,500 original slides, prints and glass negatives – many of which are considered priceless and irreplaceable – and this week they will give the last of the set to archivists for storage in computer-controlled conditions at the £60m complex.

The photographs, amassed over a 50-year period, have formed the basis of the Haynes brothers' Changing Face of Worcester project, now in the custodianship of the Tudor House Museum.

Once deposited in the Hive they will be stored in optimum conditions and the hand-over will be carried out by Jim Panter, chairman of the Worcester Heritage and Amenity Trust, to Adrian Gregson, the archival policy and collection manager at the Hive and leader of Worcester City Council.

It will take place at 4.30pm on Friday.