www.nationalarchives.gov.uk speed test — 20 Oct 2026
Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 13:58 UTC. Grade A (93/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.
Where the first byte went
- DNS lookup 72 ms 36%
- TCP connect 21 ms 11%
- Server wait 105 ms 53%
Measured on the connection that fetched the HTML. Every other request on the page waits for the end of this bar before it can start.
How this page compares
Every report published here is in this comparison, so it is a reference population of pages tested from one server - not a benchmark of the whole web.
What these numbers mean
- The server answered in 198 ms, which is fast: almost all of the wait is the page itself, not the host.
- The page transfers 635.7 KB over 26 request(s). Images files are 83% of it, so resize and recompress the largest images before anything else.
- It runs over HTTP/3, so the assets share a connection instead of opening one each.
- The largest element painted at 764 ms, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
- Layout stayed still (CLS 0.005), so nothing jumps under the reader's cursor.
- The main thread was blocked for 26 ms in total, which is not enough to feel.
Fix first: Compress text responses - Turn on brotli (preferred) or gzip for text/css, javascript and text/html in the web server. This is the cheapest win available on almost any site.
Read on one shared server, not a visitor's phone: use it to compare pages against each other, not as a promise about every connection. We fix what these tests find.
Screenshot
What the page looks like
Loaded in headless Chromium on this server. Click an image to open it full size.
Browser render
The same URL loaded in a real browser, so these are the readings curl cannot produce. The grade above is still built from the server measurements.
Page weight by type
What the page is made of
Transfer size, compressed as sent. 26 request(s) in total, 635.7 KB across all of them.
Top issues
Compress text responses
high impact0 text response(s) of 10 KB or more are sent uncompressed, and the document itself is compressed. That is 0 B of compressible text.
Fix: Turn on brotli (preferred) or gzip for text/css, javascript and text/html in the web server. This is the cheapest win available on almost any site.
Render-blocking resources
high impact7 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (0 script(s), 7 stylesheet(s)). The page cannot paint until each one arrives.
Fix: Add defer or async to scripts that do not change the first paint, inline the critical CSS, and load the rest with media="print" plus an onload swap.
Avoid extra redirects
medium impact1 redirect hop(s) before the page load started, each one a full round trip before the first byte.
Fix: Link to the canonical URL (and make sure http, the apex domain and www all point at it) so no visitor pays a redirect first.
Waterfall
Slowest requests
Each bar is one request's own response time, scaled to the slowest. Assets were fetched in parallel, so the bars overlap in real time rather than stacking. first party third party
| Request | Type | Status | Time | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/visitor-picking-up-d_WDdzh0Y.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg | images | 200 | 1.57 s | 48.5 KB |
| https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Open+Sans:[email protected]&family=Roboto+Mono:[email protected]&display=swap 3rd party | css | 200 | 1.14 s | 335 B |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/Musical_storyte.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg | images | 200 | 1.11 s | 43.2 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/prize-papers-la-perl_BrEal2r.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg | images | 200 | 1.10 s | 48.5 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/M.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg | images | 200 | 1.10 s | 44.7 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/Exeter_display_with_.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp | images | 200 | 1.10 s | 14.9 KB |
| https://use.typekit.net/kaq6qqh.css 3rd party | css | 200 | 1.10 s | 598 B |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/font-awesome.css?v=26.10.14.1995 | css | 200 | 1.09 s | 21.4 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/The_National_Archive_Dq7R2j8.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg | images | 200 | 1.09 s | 42.9 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/Exeter_display_with_D.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg | images | 200 | 1.09 s | 21.1 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/analytics.min.js?v=26.10.14.1995 | javascript | 200 | 1.08 s | 5.2 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/Rev250_web_hero_image_-_e.5feda847.fill-600x400.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg | images | 200 | 1.07 s | 28.6 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/main.min.js?v=26.10.14.1995 | javascript | 200 | 1.07 s | 10.4 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/ie.css?v=26.10.14.1995 | css | 200 | 1.07 s | 936 B |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/prize-papers-la-per_byHuOfW.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 55.5 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/.2e16d0ba_urexseO.fill-600x400.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 49.0 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/Musical_storyt.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 25.9 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/visitor-picking-up-_tR9MoAL.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 23.6 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/main.css?v=26.10.14.1995 | css | 200 | 1.05 s | 17.2 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/images/favicon.ico | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 15.0 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/assets/images/icon-180x180.png | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 4.3 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/print.css?v=26.10.14.1995 | css | 200 | 1.05 s | 944 B |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/static/images/favicon.svg | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 384 B |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/The_National_Archiv_GcVBv7S.2e16d0ba.fill-600x400.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 41.0 KB |
| https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/Rev250_web_hero_image_-_.5feda847.fill-600x400.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp | images | 200 | 1.05 s | 20.3 KB |
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