News

The Trustees of NMCT awarded 12 grants at their recent meeting.

The funds that we had available for grant giving were much reduced due to the effect of Covid-19 on NMCT's income. However, given the effect of Covid on collecting institutions and on freelance conservators the Trustees felt that it was vital that NMCT should give as much support as it could in such an extraordinarily challenging year. They therefore decided, for the first time, to dip into reserves, enabling them to award grants totalling £153,000.

The Government recently announced a £1.75bn Cultural Recovery Package.  The main schemes announced so far that are relevant to collecting institutions and conservators are:

NMCT celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2020. Read about all the conservation projects we supported in 2019 and a selection of projects from the last 30 years.

Our grants process continues as normal in spite of Covid-19. Find out more here.

At their recent meeting the Trustees agreed ten grants to a total value of just under £87,000.   The following institutions and projects were supported:

Kresen Kernow is the new home for the collections of the Archives and Cornish Studies Service. Built on the former Brewery site in Redruth, it is home to 1.5 million documents covering 850 years of Cornwall's history.

Sheffield University has announced their recent grant from NMCT: to conserve over 500 original fairground ride plans and drawings from the Orton and Spooner Collection. Orton and Spooner were a British engineering company, which produced some of the most sophisticated and sought after rides, wagons and show fronts in the fairgrounds at the turn of the 19th century. The collection is a much sought after resource by researchers, however much of it has been inaccessible due to the fragility of the designs.

The NMCT Annual Report for 2018 is now available! The report provides details of all the projects that were awarded grants during the year and also reflects on the lasting benefit of some past projects. 

The South West Heritage Trust is celebrating the successful project to conserve the archive of Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth on 19th August 2019 at the Devon Heritage Centre. Addington was Home Secretary at the time of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, and this event will mark the 200th anniversary.

At their summer meeting, the Trustees awarded nine grants totaling £70,000. The collections that will be conserved and made accessible include: medieval Gaelic manuscripts, an important collection of early modern manuscripts and commonplace books, John Ruskin's lecture diagrams, and the archive of the NUM.