Many thanks to Pauline Clarke, the Excursions Officer of the Chester Archaeological Society, for organizing our CAS visit to the Grosvenor Museum Stores, and to Liz Montgomery of the Grosvenor Museum for taking us on a splendid guided tour.  All the way round there were dozens of questions from the group, always the mark of a successful event.

It was a real eye-opener, not merely because of the box upon box of objects, but because of the amount of work that remains to be carried out.  Many of the boxes represent excavations that have been published, but also those for which post-excavation funding was not available.  Intriguingly, there are boxes of items from the excavations that took place when the old police headquarters was replaced with today’s HQ building, where St Mary’s Nunnery once stood.

The storage boxes are stacked on racks, with organic and metallic remains kept in airtight containers and, in one of the storage sections, whole objects and big stone-carved fragments kept on display on some of the racks. It was fun to spot some boxes from Cuppin Street, where I excavated in the 1980s with a great group under the supervision of Simon Ward.  Bigger objects, particularly Roman stoneware, are kept on palettes. There is a lot of Roman and post-Roman, including Medieval material, but there is also a collection of prehistoric items from the neighbouring area as well as the Cheshire ridge.

More recent items, from the earlier 20th century, are also lying on the shelves as well as in storage boxes, including wartime and inter-war period plus more recent objects.

All the contents of the storage facility have been carefully recorded, and many of the older boxes have been replaced with more appropriate specialized storage containers.  Everything is kept clean and all items are accessible.  These measures make the storage collection a very useful resource for researchers, who can take the selected storage boxes to a room equipped with tables and chairs (and an efficient radiator!) to explore the contents in comfort. It  looks as though there may be opportunities for volunteers to contribute to this work in the future, which will be an excellent opportunity for non-experts to help the professionals to put the storage collection to good use.

This storage facility is largely dedicated to the museum’s archaeological collection, with a smaller set of items from more recent history, and the whole lot is utterly fascinating.  This is not, however,  the only storage facility for the museum.  The old saltworks caverns have been converted into storage for some organizations, including the museum, and valuable items like jewellery, coins and other perishable metalwork are stored in a vault elsewhere.  The 1000+ paintings collected by the museum, particularly under the aegis of Peter Boughton, are also stored elsewhere.  As with most other museums, both this and the other Grosvenor stores demonstrate that what the museum has on display is just a fraction of what it holds, but also demonstrates just how much activity goes on behind the scenes, as well as the extent of the museum’s many responsibilities.

The photos below are a random selection of the many, many delights that the stores have to offer.  Thanks again to Liz Montgomery for an excellent guided tour, which provided real insights into the value of a storage collection to the work of this and other museums.

 

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