By Neil.
Last week I attended a Museums Facilities Managers Forum at Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre (I can feel attention beginning waver already, but bear with me). These meetings are a great place to share ideas and learn about new opportunities and innovations! Amberley museum is a fascinating place to visit as well; with its unusual blend of nature, exhibits, historic buildings, industry, crafts and history in action. As with all meetings and forums preparation is everything, as you can see below.
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| These boots were made for walking... Perfect for a big site like Amberley! |
Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre is set in some beautiful scenery within the South Downs National Park. The entrance is located right next to Amberley Station making it very easy to get to by train. The site itself is a former chalk quarry. From the 1840's up until the 1960's chalk was quarried and converted into lime for building and agriculture, by the Pepper family.
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The River Arun which runs close by the museum site. You can see part of Amberley Bridge on the far left hand side.
In a previous life I used to take water samples of the River Arun from Amberley Bridge, for the Environment Agency, but I digress. Martin Piggot the Museums Director for Amberley gave us a knowledgeable presentation on energy efficiency measures, water consumption and waste management. He also spoke about some of the challenges of running a varied 36 acre site, including security and health and safety. Next up we were in for a treat with an open top bus tour of the site.
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| A chance to get a different view of Amberley Museum from one of their exquisite vintage open top buses. |
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The open top bus tour was followed by a walking tour of the site where we were able to look at how the museum works as well as take a peak behind the scenes. This also gave the museum team the opportunity to talk about some of the issues affecting them as well as what they hope to achieve going forward.
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| Yes, that is me in the top left hand corner... Though if I do say so myself I'm rocking that bonnet! |
The meeting then reconvened with the representatives from all the museums sharing their interests and discussing some of the issues affecting them. This threw up some interesting topics including a new take on a a classic fundraising idea to enable the switch to energy efficient LED lighting.
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| Some more snippets from this impressive site. |
Rowan Wallis from the Sustainable Business Partnership then gave us an introduction to Community Energy Schemes. These are schemes where community groups can help projects such as solar panels, biomass generators and LED lighting get off the ground. In effect they provide a loan at a rate of interest low enough that the amount repaid is less than the savings made by the project. This allows the initial investment to made, which can be too much for bodies such as museums to afford.
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| Some reminders of Eastbourne at the Bus Garage. |
Amberley Museum is a fascinating place to look round and is well worth a visit. It has a rather cool film claim to fame. Most of the James Bond film 'A View to a Kill' was filmed here and the museum closed for three weeks to accommodate this. The dramatic airship scene was filmed here, some of the locomotives featured and you can see the entrance to 'Mainstrike Mine' in the bottom left photo below.
The meeting was rounded off with a chance to network with everyone, which is one of the real strengths of this forum. Museums continue to face challenging times in these austere economic climes, but it is through forums like these that they can weather them and continue to inform and stimulate generations to come.
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Lime and electricity.
The link below takes you to the Amberley Museum Website where you can find everything you need to know before visiting the museum.
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| Electricity Hall is in the main photo above. |
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