HERITAGE CONSERVATION
Volunteers help in local museums by caring for collections, recording details of documents and objects.
More of their work is described in the report about the Conservation Day at Windlesham on 23 March 2007 to be found HERE.
Making shoe forms from conservation fabric at Farnham Museum
Sewing conservation covers for old uniforms at the Aldershot Military Museum
Documenting artifacts at the Rural Life Museum, Tilford
Heritage Volunteers November 2008
Training Day November 12th
Zenzie Tinker with some of the FDFAS volunteers
The group of volunteers at the Farnham Museum recently spent an interesting day with conservator Zenzie Tinker learning how to conserve the many and varied hats owned by the museum.
The hats are of a varied nature and of different ages One is covered in feathers, another (circa 1800) made of a delicate lace; others are made of straw. All need care, and the volunteers are making supports which will mean that the hats can be stored and displayed safely.
One of the precious old bonnets
This was a day-long course. During the morning, Zenzie appraised work done previously and suggested possible improvements. In the afternoon they looked at hats to be conserved and Zenzie suggested ways of doing this.
The group have already done some work for the Museum at Shere and are now ready to progress to the more complicated hats at Farnham. This involves making a card base, padded with wadding and covered with a sympathetic fabric so that the hats, whilst held in shape, are not put under any stress. Our team are very skilful!
Zenzie Tinker shows how it was done
Heritage Volunteers Meeting 13th November
A meeting of Heritage Volunteers from the West Surrey Area was held in the Garden Room at Farnham Museum. This is a new facility which opened recently and should prove to be a useful asset to the town.
The meeting was chaired by Denise Topolski who is our Area Chairwoman.
Ann Jones (Curator of the Museum) gave us a short history of Farnham museum and its contents and talked of work done previously by our volunteers.
A talk was given by Caroline Egan (Heritage Volunteers National Chairwoman) all about finding and running projects. This showed up the variety of work that can be tackled and the skills that so many volunteers have.
At lunchtime we were given a guided tour by Ann around the fascinating costume store. The costumes were all in covers and on hangers especially made for them by our team – making one realises that many hours of work have been put into them by FDFAS volunteers.
After lunch we were able to chat to the other groups and hear about their work.
copy and pictures by Mary Brindley