A lot has been happening behind the scenes at the Museum over the winter, and with our re-opening on Saturday, 15th February, just around the corner, it’s all hands on deck!
Activity in the Museum has gathered pace as we prepare to open our doors to visitors once again. Our Collections team has been busy cleaning and polishing display cases, sprucing up our beloved natural history dioramas and reinstalling our collections making sure everything sparkles on opening day. We are so excited to share our refreshed interpretations, which not only tell the stories of the animals and their habitats but also about those who collected, created and researched them over the years.
Throughout our extensive building repairs and redecoration, we’ve faced some challenges, but the biggest one by far was moving a giant taxidermy elephant’s head into Gallery 3. After spending weeks carefully covered in a crate under protective dust sheets, the time finally came to re-introduce our African Savannah Elephant. The remarkable item has been has been a focal piece of our museum since 1909, and as we prepared for its reintroduction our collections team undertook a thorough deep clean, gently restoring him with lots of care, and removing over a century’s worth of dust and dirt.
The real challenge lay in the sheer size of the elephant’s head, which we discovered during the move, weighs 103 kg! As you can imagine, moving such a heavy and delicate item was no small feat, especially as we needed to lift it to 4m for its new display position. Luckily we had the help of specialist conservator Nigel Larkin to help us take on this challenge!
Meanwhile, ongoing refurbishments have continued to uncover fascinating clues about the people who worked at the Museum. While stripping wallpaper in Gallery 1, the decorator noticed a pencil mark on the paper that read “G.A Smith P.H. June 15th 1936”. We think P.H. stands for ‘Paper Hanger,’ but we are curious to find out who G.A.Smith might be. If anyone has information to help us solve this puzzle he left we would love to hear from you!
But first, our opening weekend will be a big milestone for us! We hope to see you there!
We can’t wait to welcome you back!
