Hafan y Blog

Our volunteers 'Spring ' into action

Penny Hill, 14 Ebrill 2016

Sorry about the awful pun in the title. But, yes, it's that time of year, the sun is out, spring's officially here and it's getting warmer. Fantastic you may say, but for our Conservators and Volunteers a new battle is about to begin! As well as our lovely lambs and piglets, less desirable creatures are stirring. These are the insect pests, such as moths, carpet beetles and woodworm, that if left unchecked would quite happily eat our museum and its collections!

This week the volunteer conservation team were introduced to the enemy. In the natural world these insects perform an essential task, but in the confines of our historic houses, or anyone's home in fact, they can cause untold damage especially to items made from wool, fur, feathers, leather, paper and wood.

We have decided to go for a two-pronged attack. The first is to re-introduce traditional deterrent methods. Last year we worked with the gardening team collecting and drying a range of aromatic plants such as Tansy, Wormwood, Rue, Rosemary and Lavender traditionally used to deter insects. From the selection grown in our gardens we have created the extremely potent St Fagans blend.

Now we are devising ways to deploy our deterrent in sufficient quantities that might have an effect. For this we found tights ideal for the task! Yes, that's correct, tights. These are especially useful for items of clothes hung up on display, they enable us to place the aromatic plants in the more inaccessible areas of a garment, such as down sleeves!

The second method of attack is of course good old fashioned housekeeping. Spring is the time to open up the house after a long winter and give everything a good clean, or in our case a good beating.

Penny Hill

Preventive conservation

sylw (5)

Nid yw sylwadau ar gael ar hyn o bryd. Ymddiheuriadau am yr anghyfleustra.
Sara Huws Staff Amgueddfa Cymru
31 Mai 2018, 16:16

Hi Charlotte - I've spoken to the blog's author, Penny. We'd be really grateful of the tights - there's a mattress that needs redoing and they will come in really handy (as long as they are washed!). I will drop you a line via email to arranged.

Best wishes and thanks again for your offer

Sara
Digital Team

Sara Staff Amgueddfa Cymru
30 Mai 2018, 10:36

Hi there Charlotte

How kind of you to think of donating these so they can be recycled to help our volunteers. I will get in touch with them to see if they need any more tights and let you know.

Best

Sara
Digital Team

Charlotte
25 Mai 2018, 16:24
Hi ...My Daughter finished school last year to start college , she has one hell of a bag full of Old school Tights ..all Black Opaque and quite Thick 80/100/200 denier which would be ideal for your Aromatic herb sausages !! Please email me to let me know , you can have them for free including free postage !! Hope you will take them ,saves me binning them all..
Claire louise
7 Tachwedd 2016, 14:31
Very Good idea's putting Tights too good use !! If you need any old Tights , i have loads ..absolutely loads , but they are ALL Black Opaques ..60 /100/200 denier you know the sort ..let me know if you want any and i will freely post them to you..Regards Claire.
Rod Hughes
15 Ebrill 2016, 08:13
Well done, spring into action.
What a very interesting and unusual aspect of preservation.
I liked the idea of stuffing tights with insect preventing herbs. I have never seen this before.
Quite excellent.