Conservation work plays a vital role in preserving Shropshire’s irreplaceable and unique written heritage.
The Conservator’s job is to conserve materials with as little restoration or renovation as possible. Ensuring items are stored properly in our high quality facilities does a lot to help save them from deterioration.
Conservation work at Shropshire Archives emphasises the prevention of further damage, this ranges from working with documents that would literally fall apart if touched to others which just require special cleaning.
Over the years the team has treated literally hundreds of collections and thousands of documents, including manuscripts, drawings, photographs, maps, plans, prints and seals.
Our conservation team also works with a number of volunteers as well as short-term contracted staff on special projects. This work can range from cleaning deeds in the Salt Solicitors' Collection to scanning glass negatives.
We also ensure frequently used documents, including parish registers are copied onto microfiche or microfilm to prevent further damage to, what are often fragile, originals.
Advice and materials
For basic advice on preserving documents and other materials take a look at the attachment on this page; 'Looking after your own documents'.
The conservator is happy to offer further advice on the storage and conservation of material, grant giving trusts funding conservation work, and the suppliers of conservation materials. For large scale projects a consultancy fee may be charged.
We sell conservation materials such as boxes, archive quality paper and wrapping materials, follow the link on this page for further information.