HERITAGE VOLUNTEERS
According to NADFAS House, “THE ARTS SOCIETY Heritage Volunteers help to conserve our heritage both in Britain and in parts of Europe. Conservation and preservation of our heritage are tremendous burdens on the limited resources of museums, National Trust properties, historic houses, libraries and gardens. Volunteers help them in non-specialist but vital ways by caring for collections, recording documents, guiding and stewarding. Heritage Volunteers help to keep them accessible for all." (You may be interested to know that, nationally, volunteers give over 300,000 hours per year working on heritage projects.)
We recently completed a project at Kiplin Hall involving the repair and restoration of some tapestries which are now on display in the hall and upstairs.
A big thank you to all our Heritage Volunteers.
Richmondshire Museum
Richmondshire Museum in the Georgian town of Richmond is in the location of a most ineresting long-term project currently undertaken by a samll group of The Arts Society North Yorkshire and South Durham Heritage Volunteers. A large amount of photographic and printed archive material relating to the area has been identified and prepared ready for future historical reasearch.
The archiving assignments at Richmondshire Museum will take a long time to complete. Although quite small, the museum is interesting and a visit is recommended if you haven’t already been.
Refectory Library Durham Cathedral
In the summer of 2003, mould was found on some of the books & music manuscripts. Volunteers were needed to deal with the problem. Initially members of two societies were involved. Now two of our members go to the cathedral once a week, from 10am – 4pm, with tea and lunch breaks! This is how two of the Volunteers describe their experiences:
“We remove all the books from the shelves section by section and then clean them using shaving brushes to remove the dust and mould which is drawn into small museum vacuum cleaners. If mould is found we wipe the outside, only leather bound, with cotton wool dampened with IMS (industrial methylated spirit). The books are then left for one week, after which we apply leather dressing which is left on for another week & then polished off. The shelves are cleaned with neat Dettol and after drying for a week, the books are returned.
Two years ago the roof of the library was renewed. The books were covered with polythene and a false ceiling erected, but dust managed to fall onto the books we had already cleaned. At the moment we are brushing again the outside of those books.
While the roof was being renewed we made boxes & display stands from whole sheets of acid free card, in another room in the library. The Conservator of the University taught us how to make the boxes.
During the autumn, the cleaning of more than 10,000 volumes was completed, having taken us six years.We have also started work on a conservation survey, which includes describing and recording the condition of the binding and text block, noting damage such as insect holes or water stains”.