I’m not so good at tidying my house at the best of times… but if my house was an authentic Victorian miner’s cottage, it would certainly be much more interesting!
At the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum in Eastwood, we’ve been closed to the public since New Year for our annual deep clean of the museum and all of its historic artefacts.
Yes… each and every one!
Before I worked in the museum the idea of a ‘Deep Clean’ baffled me. Surely the museum didn’t get that dirty throughout the year… after all the Lawrence family don’t live here anymore! What I didn’t realise is that, just like at home, each guest creates dust particles that fall onto the artefacts and floor. The oils from your hands also stay on the surface of the materials, and without regular cleaning and protection it can cause serious damage to these delicate surfaces.
The question running through my mind when we first starting this huge task was… where do you even start? I found out that each room is tackled one by one. By moving all of the smaller artefacts into the shop (where they will each have their condition checked and be cleaned), we have been able to clean and move the larger pieces of furniture.
The deep clean is a great opportunity to get a closer look at the artefacts we talk about every day. This year we have found a few mystery objects that we didn’t recognise too. We always thought that the piano stool was heavy, but this year we managed to open it up to find old sheet music inside! We also found some mysterious Roman numeral markings on our parlour chairs.
Even making it to the big screen! Well almost… Our friends at Notts TV News filmed us as part of the National Trust style conservation cleaning. You can catch us here on Notts TV.
We’re now looking forward to showing off our clean museum, so don’t forget to drop by soon!
Christina Webb
