SPAB Mills Section Autumn 2022 Online Event 

SPAB Mills Section Autumn 2022 Online Event 

mikenevell
Sibsey Trader Mill cap being loaded into position. Image courtesy of SPAB.

The SPAB Mills section is running an online event on the 18th and 19th November 2022, taking place on both Friday evening and Saturday morning. The focus will be on mill repair and the use of hydro-power. You can book either session or both: Friday only – £10, Saturday only – £20, Friday & Saturday – £25 

To book for Friday and Saturday see here https://www.spab.org.uk/whats-on/events/autumn-event 

To book for the Friday evening talk only see here https://www.spab.org.uk/whats-on/lectures/autumn-event-friday-18-november 

To book for the Saturday morning talks only see here https://www.spab.org.uk/whats-on/lectures/autumn-event-saturday-19-november 

Online Programme:

Friday 18th November: 6pm-7.30pm 

Talk by Geoff Wallis (Millwright and Consultant) 

Is mill conservation sustainable? 

• Ecological – use of energy/materials, energy-intensive 

restoration, management of waste, etc 

• Availability of resources to keep mills in good order: 

traditional expertise/materials, cash, etc. 

• Do people want mills anyway? 

 Saturday 19th November: 9.40am-1.30pm 

Mixture of talks on mill repair and watermills and hydro-power. 

Luke Bonwick (Mill Consultant) 

Steve Temple (Mill Owner) 

Tim Whiting (Millwright) 

Toby Slater (SPAB Millwright Fellow) 

Stephen Bartlett (Hydro Specialist) 

A recording of the talks will be available after the event for all registered bookings. 

Proposed Funding Cut to Royal Cornwall Museum: A Sign of Things to Come in the Industrial Heritage Museum Sector?

mikenevell

The proposed withdrawal of core funding from Cornwall Council, announced in the summer of 2022, could threaten the future of the Royal Cornwall Museum. The museum, founded in 1818, holds a wide range of collections spanning 4,000 years of Cornwall’s history, including material and displays relating to the area’s rich mining heritage. Such a proposed cut from a key funder may be a sign of the potential impact of local authority cuts within the industrial heritage museum sector (and beyond), as councils battle rising inflation against tight budgets and legal requirements to support key services.

However, in an encouraging statement on the RCM’s website their Chief Executive Jonathan Morton stated that: “We are grateful to the delegation of senior officers from Cornwall Council for coming to the museum and allowing us to outline our situation, and to put forward our proposals for both a short term fix and a longer term solution. This meeting also allowed us to highlight the progress the museum has made over recent years and to reinforce the importance of the museum and its collections to the people of Cornwall.

We’ve been really encouraged by the response from Cornwall Council following the meeting, and both RCM and Cornwall Council have committed to continue to explore options, along with other partner organisations, to address the short and long term future of the museum, and will be undertaking further discussions in the coming days.”

You can help the museum by visiting, or making a donation and joining as a member by following this link: https://www.royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk/

Kennet & Avon Canal Trust are Looking for a New Treasurer

Kennet & Avon Canal Trust are Looking for a New Treasurer

mikenevell

The Kennet and Avon Canal Trust is looking for a new Treasurer, as the current Treasurer is standing down in the New Year. As Treasurer, you will also be a Trustee. You will work closely with other Trustees, and in particular the Chairman, as well as the part-time Finance Officer to help ensure that the Trust has the resources to continue to promote the Kennet and Avon Canal to the benefit of all its users, the communities through which it passes, and its heritage, in line with its charitable objects.

You do not need to be a qualified accountant, but you will be used to working with numbers and spreadsheets. Some experience of charity finance and charity law would be desirable. KACT is a charitable company, limited by guarantee, so is subject to the provisions of both charity and company law.

If you would like to know more about the role or would like the full recruitment pack, please contact either the Chairman, Chris Sims (chair@katrust.org.uk) or the current Treasurer, Chris Bolt (fd@katrust.org.uk). The closing date for applications is 21 October 2022.

Industrial Heritage Fair, Essex, 1 October 2022

mikenevell

Details of this year’s Essex Industrial Heritage Fair, run by the Essex Industrial Archaeology Group, to be held on the 1st October, have been announced. The venue is the Silver End Village Hall, CM8 3RQ. Silver End was conceived as a model industrial village by the industrialist Francis Henry Crittall, who established a Crittall Windows Ltd factory there to manufacture components for metal windows in the 1920s.

Entrance to the Industrial Heritage Fair is free, and there is on-street car parking throughout the village. Light refreshments will be provided by the W.I. during the event and there are food outlets at the adjacent parade of shops. As well as talks, in the morning there will be two guided walks around the village, its factory and the model village housing. The programme is as follows:

10:00              Fair opens to the public

10:30              Welcome by Tony Crosby, Chairman of Essex Industrial Archaeology Group followed by the official opening of the Industrial Heritage Fair by Simon Brice D.L.

10:45 & 11:15 Guided walks around the village

1:45    Jackie Nesbitt: The history of Crittall’s and Silver End Village

2:30    Mike Tarbard: Bata shoe manufacturers and East Tilbury Village

3:15    Natalie Banks: The architecture of Silver End village

The Fair closes at 4:00 pm promptly.

Heritage Volunteering Conference 2022 – Tickets Now on Sale

mikenevell

Tickets for this year’s Heritage Volunteering Group Conference, #HeritageVolunteering22, on the 8th to 9th November, are now available. #HeritageVolunteering22 will explore how we make the most of our varied skills to build a new future for heritage volunteering.

The conference will open with a Keynote talk from Shaun Delaney, Head of Volunteering Strategy at DCMS. The rest of the conference will feature a combination of workshops, panel discussions, and the awarding of HVG’s Volunteer Leader of the Year Award. The full agenda is available on the Eventbrite page

General tickets are available at £25. Follow this link to buy your tickets: here.

National Brewery Centre, Burton, Threatened with Closure

mikenevell

The National Brewery Centre in Burton-upon-Trent is being threatened with closure. The Grade II Listed brewery building is owned by Molson Coors, which is proposing to re-use the museum building as the new headquarters for its 500 staff in Burton. The intention is to switch from their current HQ in High Street to the brewery centre site. The museum is housed in the former Joiner’s shop of Bass’s Middle Brewery, which was built in 1866. The three-storey, brick-built structure, is 12 bays long.

Molson Coors’ High Street building will be demolished to make way for a new waterside development in the town centre. The waterside development is being led by the Burton Town Deal Board, which will spend £5 million in Government grants to create the development fronting the River Trent as part of the regeneration of the town centre. Molson Coors commented that ‘We’re committed to working with Planning Solutions Limited, the National Brewing Heritage Trust and the council to manage the closure of the site as sensitively as possible and finding the right new home for our industry’s important heritage.’

The Heritage Brewery Trust, which runs the centre, has said that a “selection” of its half-a-million brewing artefacts housed at the museum will be moved to Bass House, on the High Street. Currently 5,000 items including machinery are on display at the centre.

Further details can be found here: https://www.staffordshire-live.co.uk/news/burton-news/campaign-launched-save-burtons-national-7579458?utm_source=sharebar&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sharebar

The National Brewery Centre’s website site can be found here: https://nationalbrewerycentre.co.uk/

A campaign has been launched to save the Brewery Centre on its current site. The petition can be found here: https://www.change.org/p/save-burton-s-national-brewery-centre?recruiter=161984374&recruited_by_id=1f2fbeae-b677-488b-9e39-654f3351841a&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_34423556_en-GB%3A6

 

Heritage Open Days 2022 Features Industrial Sites

Heritage Open Days 2022 Features Industrial Sites

mikenevell

Strutts North Mill, Belper, Derbyshire, which will be open for tours during Heritage Open Days 2022.

It has been confirmed that the 2022 version of Heritage Open Days will run as planned, from the 9th to the 18th of September, despite the Queen’s death on the 8th September. Hundreds of industrial heritage and archaeology sites run by local groups and communities feature on the list of venues open for free to the public.

The theme of ‘Astounding Inventions’ has helped to more than double the number of industrial heritage sites accessible this year, up from 113 in 2021 to 239 in 2022. There were no in-person events in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. The largest group of industrial sites opening relate to transport, with 70 historic aircraft, canal, railway, and road sites available to explore. This includes small scale sites such as the Union Bridge and Warmley Signal Box, as well as many Heritage Railways and transport museums such as Locomotion, in Durham and the Greater Manchester Transport Museum.

The largest category of industrial sites to open their doors remains wind and watermills, as it was in 2021, with 51 sites. Larger industrial museums with entry charges are also offering free events, from the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust to the National Trust properties such as Quarry Bank Textile Mill. There are also private working or small heritage sites accessible, that are seldom open to the public, such as G H Hurt & Son’s Shawl Factory in Nottingham, The Harveys Brewery in Lewes, Sussex, and the RDF radar tower at Harwich in Essex.

For details of where to find venues and their opening times during Britain’s biggest annual heritage festival follow this link: https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/

Digital Development Training Seminars for Autumn 2022

mikenevell

Booking is now open for new dates for these popular development sessions with Culture24. All courses are delivered online via Zoom in 3 x 2hr sessions – one session per week for three weeks. 

There are 18 places on each course – 2 places for each of 9 museums. All sessions are being delivered for museums across the Museum Development North East, North West, and Yorkshire regions. 

For more information about booking a place please contact: alexander.bird@manchester.ac.uk / bria.cotton@manchester.ac.uk

Port Sunlight Village Seeking New Trustee

Port Sunlight Village Seeking New Trustee

mikenevell

The Port Sunlight Village Trust are seeking a new voluntary trustee board member with expertise in global heritage conservation. This is following the announcing of their World Heritage ambitions for Port Sunlight.

Port Sunlight is the world’s finest planned working-class community, and was founded by ‘Soap King’ William Hesketh Lever in 1888. The village was built to house Lever’s ‘Sunlight Soap’ factory workers.

The closing date for applications for this voluntary position is 12th September. For more details follow this link: https://www.portsunlightvillage.com/psvt-seeks-new-board-members/

Funding Opportunity: Esmee Fairbairn Collections Fund

Funding Opportunity: Esmee Fairbairn Collections Fund

mikenevell

The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund supports a range of projects that bring collections closer to people. They award the fund on behalf of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to projects that demonstrate the significance, distinctiveness, and power of collections to people. The fund has awarded over £11m to 170 projects since it launched in 2011.

The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund supports museums to use their collections to become relevant and sustainable organisations that are connected to, and valued by, their communities. All applications to the fund must focus on existing collections, typically held by an Accredited museum or partnership of museums and other organisations. The funded work must engage and involve audiences to achieve public benefit. In 2022 they have simplified the grants offered, recognising the challenge of the pandemic and seeking ways to build on the great work undertaken in the last two years. This year they are offering grants of up to £90k over two years for museums to test new, ambitious, creative collections engagement that has a social impact. These grants are for museums to innovate, kick-start, or develop their collections engagement practice where there is a strong link between a relevant collection and audience.

The last expression of interest deadline this year is 14 September 2022 for awards in December, following a two-stage process. In total £1.3m will be awarded in 2022 across an anticipated seven to ten projects in each funding round. All applicants will meet a set of essential requirements relating to using existing collections to engage, involve and inspire audiences. You can find out more about what they want to see in their guidance for applicants.

For more information and download applicant information packs, please click here to visit their website.