diff --git a/docs/src/common_links.inc b/docs/src/common_links.inc
index 182c8ad59f..530ebc4877 100644
--- a/docs/src/common_links.inc
+++ b/docs/src/common_links.inc
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 .. _isort: https://pycqa.github.io/isort/
 .. _issue: https://github.com/SciTools/iris/issues
 .. _issues: https://github.com/SciTools/iris/issues
-.. _legacy documentation: https://scitools.org.uk/iris/docs/v2.4.0/
+.. _legacy documentation: https://github.com/SciTools/scitools.org.uk/tree/master/iris/docs/archive
 .. _matplotlib: https://matplotlib.org/stable/
 .. _napolean: https://sphinxcontrib-napoleon.readthedocs.io/en/latest/sphinxcontrib.napoleon.html
 .. _nox: https://nox.thea.codes/en/stable/
diff --git a/docs/src/index.rst b/docs/src/index.rst
index b9f7faaa03..c5d654ed31 100644
--- a/docs/src/index.rst
+++ b/docs/src/index.rst
@@ -88,6 +88,8 @@ Icons made by `FreePik <https://www.freepik.com>`_ from
 `Flaticon <https://www.flaticon.com/>`_
 
 
+.. _iris_support:
+
 Support
 ~~~~~~~
 
@@ -101,7 +103,11 @@ The legacy support resources:
 
 * `Users Google Group <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/scitools-iris>`_
 * `Developers Google Group <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/scitools-iris-dev>`_
-* `Legacy Documentation`_ (Iris 2.4 or earlier)
+* `Legacy Documentation`_ (Iris 2.4 or earlier).  This is an archive of zip
+  files of past documentation.  You can download, unzip and view the
+  documentation locally (index.html).  There may be some incorrect rendering
+  and older javascvript (.js) files may show a warning when uncompressing, in
+  which case we suggest you use a different unzip tool.
 
 
 .. toctree::
diff --git a/docs/src/whatsnew/latest.rst b/docs/src/whatsnew/latest.rst
index 8332b1444d..770242d4ca 100644
--- a/docs/src/whatsnew/latest.rst
+++ b/docs/src/whatsnew/latest.rst
@@ -191,6 +191,8 @@ This document explains the changes made to Iris for this release
    to reference Read the Docs' built-in version switcher, instead of generating
    its own independent links. (:pull:`5055`)
 
+#. `@tkknight`_ updated the links for the Iris documentation to v2.4 and
+   earlier to point to the archive of zip files instead. (:pull:`5064`)
 
 💼 Internal
 ===========
diff --git a/docs/src/why_iris.rst b/docs/src/why_iris.rst
index 63a515f68e..82b791b4bd 100644
--- a/docs/src/why_iris.rst
+++ b/docs/src/why_iris.rst
@@ -40,5 +40,4 @@ Interoperability with packages from the wider scientific Python ecosystem comes
 from Iris' use of standard NumPy/dask arrays as its underlying data storage.
 
 Iris is part of SciTools, for more information see https://scitools.org.uk/.
-For **Iris 2.4** and earlier documentation please see the
-:link-badge:`https://scitools.org.uk/iris/docs/v2.4.0/,"legacy documentation",cls=badge-info text-white`.
+For **Iris 2.4** and earlier documentation please see :ref:`iris_support`.
\ No newline at end of file