Tag: Industrial heritage

Industrial Heritage Network Meetings for 2025: West Midlands Date Released

Industrial Heritage Network Meetings for 2025: West Midlands Date Released

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2025’s in-person Industrial Heritage Network (IHN) meetings will be taking place over the summer and autumn. Established in 2018, these regional meetings are designed to bring together those industrial heritage sites open to the public in each region, and local groups and individuals working or volunteering on industrial archaeology and heritage subjects and sites in the area. The format is a round-table discussion in the morning, with a tour of the site in the afternoon.

The first meeting for 2025 will be for the West Midlands IHN, which will be held at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust in the Glass Classroom on the Coalbrookdale site on 25th June. After a general meeting in the morning, there will be an afternoon tour of current conservation works at Blists Hill.

All IHN members are very welcome to attend. A booking link via Eventbrite can be found here. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/west-midlands-industrial-heritage-network-meeting-tickets-1377368599559?aff=oddtdtcreator

These meetings are part of the Industrial Heritage Support project for England, run by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and funded by Historic England and the Association for Industrial Archaeology.

Colliery headgear and canal at Blists Hill, Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge. Image copyright Dr Michael Nevell.
EERIAC 2025 Conference Now Booking

EERIAC 2025 Conference Now Booking

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The 2025 East of England Regional Industrial Archaeology Conference (EERIAC) will take place on Saturday 7th June at the Prickwillow Engine Museum, Ely, Cambridgeshire. This year’s conference is being organised by the Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Group.

The Outline Programme is as follows:

  • 10.00 Free Tea, Coffee, and Biscuits on arrival.
  • 10:30 to 12.30 Lectures on waterways transport in Cambridgeshire and on rescuing the Black Prince, a Fenland lighter.
  • 12.45 to 13.30 Buffet Lunch.
  • 13.30 to 17.00 A tour of the Prickwillow Engine Museum, and a visit to the Stretham Old Pumping Engine, Green End, Stretham.

Costs: £15 (no lunch) and £23 with lunch. Drop-ins on the day are welcome but booking in advice is advised. The booking form is below.

EERIAC booking form 2025Download
Museum Renewal Fund Opens & Timetable for MEND Round 5

Museum Renewal Fund Opens & Timetable for MEND Round 5

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Arts Council England (ACE) has opened a new £20 million fund to support local authority museums. ACE have also published the timetable for Museum Estate Development Fund (MEND) Round five.

The Museum Renewal Fund targets museums owned and directly maintained by local authority funding, or with a governance link to a local authority. The programme is intended to help museums meet the shortfall between operating costs and income throughout their 2025-26 budget, where the shortfall results in reduced programming, footfall, and days open to the public. 

Museums can apply for a minimum of £10,000 up to a maximum of £1million. The application deadline is 22 May with outcomes expected by 26 June latest. The funding period runs from August 4 to 31 January 2026.

ACE have also released the timetable of Round 5 of the Museum Estate Development Fund (MEND). This capital fund targets non-national Accredited museums and local authorities based in England. It covers funding to undertake vital infrastructure and urgent maintenance backlogs which are beyond the scope of day-to-day maintenance budgets.

The total fund is worth £25million and grants range from £50,000 to £5million. Expressions of Interest for Round 5 open at 9am on Monday 12 May 2025 with a deadline of Thursday 5 June.

For further details of both fund ing streams, including the application processes, follow this link: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/our-open-funds

Mills Archive Trust Archival Skills Webinars

Mills Archive Trust Archival Skills Webinars

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On 24 May and 7 June, between 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm, the Mills Archive Trust will be hosting a two-part webinar series covering the fundamental skills needed to protect and share archival records.

For over two decades, the Trust’s UK accredited archive has preserved the history of the traditional and modern milling industry. They want to share these skills, whether you are an individual collector or part of an organisation.

The first session will cover how to organise and catalogue archival records. The second session will help you preserve them, including old documents or digital files, from decay and make them accessible online. To join the Caring for Your Collection webinars and for more information, visit new.millsarchive.org/caring-for-your-collection/. For more information, email friends@millsarchive.org.

Marsh Awards for 2025 Now Open

Marsh Awards for 2025 Now Open

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The Council for British Archaeology is partnering with the Marsh Charitable Trust in delivering this year’s Marsh Community Archaeology Awards. The deadline for the Awards is noon on Monday 26 May 2025. The Trust supports organisations and people who make a difference within the charity sector. The Marsh Community Archaeology Awards celebrate the outstanding contributions of these people who are committed to social, cultural, and environmental causes. The Awards have two categories.

• Community Archaeologist of the Year – This award recognises an individual volunteer or professional who is going above and beyond their role to contribute to community archaeology.

• Community Archaeology Project of the Year – This award recognises and promotes the results of research and/or fieldwork led by community groups which have made a substantial contribution to knowledge and wellbeing.

Museum professionals and projects that work with communities are eligible, which of course includes industrial heritage sites. You can find out more about the upcoming awards here:

https://www.archaeologyuk.org/our-work/archaeology-awards/the-marsh-community-archaeology-awards.html

The Marsh Charitable Trust was founded in 1981 with the sum of £75,000 by its current Chairman, Mr Brian Marsh OBE. His aim was to create a sustainable way to give something back to society, by supporting the organisations and people who are making a difference, as best he could. From the outset the Trust has aimed to create long-standing relationships with the organisations it supports and partners through both its principal areas of work; the Grants Programme and the Awards Scheme. The Trust supports around 350 charities every year through the Grants Programme and gives around 80 different Awards to individuals and groups from across the charity sector, who make a difference to a cause that they believe in.

Adapting to Net Zero on Industrial Heritage Sites Online Seminar, May 2025

Adapting to Net Zero on Industrial Heritage Sites Online Seminar, May 2025

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The Industrial Heritage Support project is running a free online seminar on 22 May 2025 focussing on climate change and Net Zero. The seminar is designed to give an overview of Net Zero adaptation strategies on industrial heritage sites in England. This is a follow-up seminar from an event on climate change and industrial heritage sites run in 2023.

The seminar will include a short presentation from Historic England covering their latest research and advice on reaching Net Zero in the Heritage sector. This will be followed by three industrial heritage site case studies from Cromford Mills, the National Mining Museum in Wakefield, and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust discussing practical and future steps as these sites to achieve Net Zero. The seminar will finish with a discussion and questions.

The seminar is free and will run from 10:30am to 12 noon. To book via Eventbrite click here

National Mills Weekend 2025: 10 & 11 May

National Mills Weekend 2025: 10 & 11 May

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This year, SPAB’s National Mills Weekend will take place on 10 and 11 May. It will focus on the way that mills past and present have been recorded in pictorial form with the theme ‘Mills in Time’. 

The weekend is an annual celebration promoted by the Mills Section of SPAB.  Across the country hundreds of mills – including some not normally open to the public – will be taking part. 

This year, SPAB are encouraging everyone (owner, volunteer, neighbour, or visitor) to share and display images of participating mills. These can be recent photographs or artworks (including embroideries, collages, films, or videos), or paintings, or drawings, and even old maps, postcards, or posters. To share your images go to the #NationalMillsWeekend Facebook page. Please remember to credit the copyright owner and photographer where known. 

To check whether your local wind or water mill is opening during the weekend click on the individual site website or follow this link for further details: https://www.spab.org.uk/whats-on/events/national-mills-weekend-2025

SPAB-owned Fladbury Mill and Kibworth Harcourt Post Mill, which aren’t normally open to the public, will also be open for the weekend. To book go to the SPAB website.

The waterwheel at Stretton Watermill, Cheshire. Image copyright Dr Michael Nevell.
Historic England Webinar Recording on the Industrial Heritage Work of the Canal & River Trust Now Available

Historic England Webinar Recording on the Industrial Heritage Work of the Canal & River Trust Now Available

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For several years Historic England has been running a very successful lunchtime learning webinar training series. The latest industrial heritage webinar case study on the work of the Canal & River Trust, held earlier this autumn, can now can be viewed online.

Follow this link to watch the webinar: https://vimeo.com/1023201169/d6a3476fc4

One example of the re-use and conservation of canal-related industrial heritage mentioned in the webinar was The Roundhouse, Sheepcote Street, Birmingham. This former horse-shoe shaped stables and stores was built as a mineral and coal wharf, around 1840. Listed Grade II* the site was removed from the Heritage at Risk Register in 2021, renovated with the help of NHLF and CRT, and is now being run as a heritage enterprise by the charity Roundhouse Birimgham providing office space, a visitor centre, and canal-related leisure and outreach activities.

The Roundhouse, Sheepcote Street, Birmingham. Image courtesy of Historic England.

New Ironbridge Volunteers Begin Work on Next Phase of Sentinel Engines Restoration

New Ironbridge Volunteers Begin Work on Next Phase of Sentinel Engines Restoration

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In September the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (IGMT) launched a recruitment drive to find new volunteers to help them complete the second phase of the project to conserve two Sentinel locomotives at Coalbrookdale. IGMT found them through a range of outlets, including the Shropshire Star, the Telford Journal, and BBC Radio Shropshire, and they started work omn 18 October.

The two Sentinel Shunting Locomotives (left), which date from the 1860s, are historically important parts of the Trust’s collection. They were used by the Coalbrookdale Company on their internal railway system. In the 1920s, to reduce running and material costs, the Sentinel Waggon Works Ltd. modernised and converted locomotives from a boiler and cylinder system to a boiler with chain drive to both axles, and the locomotives within this project are the oldest locomotive conversions by Sentinel that are known to have been preserved. They are now on permanent display beneath the arches of the viaduct that passes through Coalbrookdale for museum visitors and passersby to see.

In 2023 the Trust secured funding from the Association for Industrial Archaeology to carry out work to conserve the engines, whose condition had deteriorated over time due to weather conditions. While the engines will not run again, the aim of the project is to stabilise their condition and conserve them so they can continue to be enjoyed by future visitors to the Ironbridge Gorge and its museums.

Under the guidance of Trevor Barraclough, the team began work on this second phase in October 2024. The work will involve wet and dry cleaning; priming bare iron; painting; and if appropriate carrying out some minor repairs. Volunteers also regularly receive questions from members of the public interested in their work and will be asked to take photographs to help record the progress of the project. The hope is to complete the project by Christmas, but this is dependent on the weather.

Picture shows volunteers Peter Taylor, Matthew Fletcher, Alan Watson, Steven Downton, Phil Garbett and Mike Sprason with Trevor Barraclough (centre). Image courtesy of IGMT.
7th East-West Workshop on Industrial Archaeology: Weaving the Industrial Period

7th East-West Workshop on Industrial Archaeology: Weaving the Industrial Period

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The production of fabric and its transformation into clothes was worldwide one of the first sectors to embrace modern industrialisation, even though continuities (of domestic working spaces, traditional production processes, manual technologies, etc.) often coexisted with changes (the factory, the factory system, the power loom). The 7th East-West Workshop on Industrial Archaeology revisits the capital importance of the textile sector in the development of the industrial period.

The East-West series of workshops aims to exchange ideas and knowledge among Western and Eastern colleagues to build a more international and diverse industrial archaeology. This edition focuses on the heritage and archaeology of the textile industry from the East, the West, and the world to explore its commonalities (transfer of technology, building materials, typologies, etc) and singularities (chronological disparities, heritage practices, etc.)

The event is organised jointly by the Institute for Cultural Heritage and History of Science & Technology (USTB, China), and the UK Association for Industrial Archaeology with its Young Members. IOt will trake place on Staurday 23rd Novemebr, between 10am and 12pm (GMT). The speakers are:

  • Yiping Dong (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China): “Complexity of the Conservation of Textile Heritage in China”
  • Ian Miller (The University of Salford, Britain): “Salford Twist Mill: Uncovering an Iconic Textile Factory”
  • Mark Watson (Historic Environment Scotland, Britain): “Global Textile Industries and their Built Heritage”

To register for FREE workshop and to get the Zoom link for the event, follow this link:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/7th-east-west-workshop-on-industrial-archaeology-tickets-1072988229679