Members of the royal family have been compiling photo albums of their memories for generations. The Royal Photograph Collection houses Queen Mary’s 33 albums, which contain photographs documenting her official visits, family life, and travel from 1880 to 1952. Queen Mary collected over 12,000 photographs that she arranged and captioned herself.  

The albums are currently undergoing conservation treatment, including cleaning and repairs to the paper and binding. In some instances, the albums have been completely rebound. The project aims to make the albums safer to handle, so that they can be digitised, researched, and displayed in the future. 

Watch the film to learn more about how conservators are carefully repairing each album.