News
We had a good turn out for our latest summer Behind the Scenes Tour.
Last week visitors were guided around Hitchin Museum to see the latest progress on the big museum move. Our Visitor Service Assistants, trained in conservation cleaning, were busy cleaning the last few objects for display. These included a typewriter and Victorian children’s cloths. The tour was shown how these are carefully photographed and packed to protect them for the move.
Look out for our next Tour on Friday 12th September for Heritage Open Day.
An album dating from around a hundred years ago, containing 50 watercolour pictures by local artists Alice and Matilda Lucas, has been purchased by North Hertfordshire Museum Service.
This has been made possible by the Hertfordshire Heritage Fund, who generously funded much of the purchase cost.
The album of beautifully executed paintings, from the Lucas’ travels, from Lake Superior to Newquay; from Barnsley to Gaping Hill. Alice and Matilda were members of the well known Lucas family of Hitchin, many of whom were accomplished artists, the best known being Samuel Lucas Sr and Alice Lucas. David Hodges, Curator at Hitchin Museum said, “we are very excited that this wonderful Collection can stay in Hitchin, and look forward to being able to show it at the new North Herts. Museum. We are very grateful to the Hertfordshire Heritage Fund for making this possible”.
We have a huge variety of objects in our collection and I am constantly reminded of this as they come through for cleaning, photographing and packing.
This large Amphora, c 100BC and the earliest known found in Britain, was cleaned by brushing and vacuuming and then gently scrubbing with plain water and a toothbrush.
The outside of the pot is smooth but the inside has lovely rings on it, which made me wonder whether it may have been made as a coil pot. On the outside there are some green patches where it would have been in contact with copper.
As I cleaned the Amphora I was struck by the smell of dust and soil – it was an old and earthy smell!
At the same time, in the gallery, we had this beautifully shaped 4th-1st century BC miniature flagon which was cleaned in the same way as for the Amphora and it struck me what a variety we have in the collection – this time in scale!
