Grants awarded in December 2015

The Trustees of NMCT met in early December and, as usual, considered applications for the conservatin of a huge variety of collections including police archives, family and estate collections, company archives - including the pre-emintent Minton Archive - and the Diocese of London Unfit Consistory Court Books before 1600.  

Trustees awarded a total of over £130,000 in grants towards projects that have a total value of just under £300,000.

Among the grants awarded were:

Argyll Estates:   Written in the Landscape: Conserving the Argyll Papers’ Maps and Plans Collection
A grant of £15,000 towards a £45,000 project
The Argyll Estates' Papers’ Maps and Plans Collection comprises c1,500 manuscript and printed items reflecting the historically extensive landholding, political and public responsibilities of the Dukes of Argyll, 17th – 20th centuries and is of national significance owing to its wide ranging subject matter, chronological depth and the importance of the architects, surveyors and cartographers represented.

Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archives Service:  Conservation of the Minton Archive
A grant of £24,000 towards a £33,000 project
The Minton Archive was saved for the nation in 2015 and presented to Staffordshire and Stoke On Trent Archives Service. The archive is very large, the catalogue runs to over 5,000 entries, some of which reference over 400 items. 
This major grant for the conservation of the first tranche of this pre-eminent collection was made possible by The Pilgrim Trust, which generously supports archive conservation in partnership with NMCT.

Woodhorn Museum and Northumberland Archives: Swinburne - Early Deeds And Charters Of An Important Border Family
A grant of £14,850 towards a £27,850 project
A collection of 758 early deeds, charters and papers of the Swinburne family of Capheaton, currently bound into seven volumes and covering the period, 1172-1714.The collection is significant in charting the history of the English/Scottish border area up to and beyond the Union of the Crowns in 1603. 

West Glamorgan Archives Service: Conserving the mine engineering drawings of the Neath Abbey Ironworks Collection
A grant of £16,600, the full cost of the project
The designs for mine pumping engines and their engine houses produced by the Neath Abbey Ironworks are important surviving evidence for industrial archaeological sites in Britain, Europe and worldwide.This collection is a rare survival which shows the contribution of South Wales to Britain’s industrial revolution and to the spread of British mining technology to the rest of the world. The rarity of the collection was recognised in 2014 by its inscription on the UK Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World programme, only the third collection in Wales to be so recognised.

A full list of all grants awarded since 2010 can be found in the Past Grants section of this site.

The next deadline for grant applications is April 1st 2016 (decisions in late June 2016). You can find our application form and guidance in the Applying to Us section of the site and if you have any queries about whether your project is eligible you can contact us through this site.