The archives of Britain’s oldest newspaper have been saved for the nation, thanks to a £300,000 lottery grant.

The Heritage Lottery Fund will provide the Stamford Mercury with the money to help give public access to a complete microfilm run of the Mercury.

It will allow crucial conservation work on the collection of bound volume copies of nearly 300 years of newspapers.

It is believed to be the first time such a grant has been approved to conserve a newspaper collection.

The archive has been closed to the public for eight years because of the damage caused to the papers by constant use.

When the project is complete, people will once again be able to access the archives at the Mercury’s offices in Sheep Market, Stamford.

Welland Valley Newspapers, part of Johnston Press, which owns the archive, promoted the setting up of an archive trust, which drew up a business plan and grant application to present to the Fund.

In that plan, the trust said: “The importance of the archive is not merely the information it contains on national, regional and local events – this is also available elsewhere – but in its being virtually complete and still held in the town of the newspaper’s birth. It is of major importance to the national’s cultural heritage.”

Newspapers in the archive contain reports on a man who sold his wife at Stamford Market – which inspired Thomas Hardy’s famous scene in his novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge – and international events like the American Declaration of Independence, the Battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo and the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Sheila Stone, the Fund regional manager, said: “This archive is a fascinating record of life in Stamford through time and has national importance as such a historic collection of news coverage.”

Former editors of the Rutland and Stamford Mercury Tim Robinson and Tor Clark both played important roles with the archive project, which was spearheaded by conservationist and former Stamford Museum curator John Smith.

Current editor Eileen Green, who took up her new role on February 21, said she was delighted the bid had been successful.

She said: “Everyone at the Mercury is very excited about the conservation work. We appreciate what a wonderful and valuable archive we have, and look forward to being able to have members of the public use it again.”