The 2007 Shortlist

Three outstanding - and very different - survivors of Britain’s heritage were short-listed for one of the prestigious Conservation Awards 2007. See below for details of all the short-lists, including the Student of the Year Award and the Award for Care of Collections, the Anna Plowden Trust Award - featuring the work of some of the leading conservation scientists in the UK - and the Digital Preservation Award.

See the judging in progress

An elegant 400–year old doublet in cream silk has been meticulously conserved by The Scottish Conservation Studio and put on display in Perth Museum for the first time ever, together with a replica – for trying on – and a pair of matching breeches. Once an essential part of a fashionable man’s wardrobe, few garments of such quality have survived the centuries. This Scottish treasure was in the hands of the McBain Menzies family for many years and is thought to have come originally from the Stewarts of Killiecrankie, Perthshire.

An even earlier survival is a magnificent embroidered table cover made for Bess of Hardwick in 1579, now on show at Hardwick Hall, near Chesterfield. Reconstructing the Tobit table carpet was a labour of love for the National Trust’s textile conservators, who spent nearly 18 years removing earlier defective restorations, restoring it to its former size and revealing the glory of the original design with its riot of fruit, flowers, birds and animals. Now displayed at full length in a custom-built case, the carpet bears witness to the splendour of Elizabethan banqueting.

Brunel’s ss Great Britain, the world’s first screw-propelled, iron-built passenger liner, rescued from the Falklands in 1970 and towed across the Atlantic to her “birthplace” at Bristol dry dock, has been transformed by the innovative application of conservation research and technology into a leading visitor attraction. By 1998, parts of the iron hull resembled lacework barely able to support the ship’s weight. The solution for this rampant corrosion was a giant climate-controlled chamber sealed by a glass “sea”, upon which the ship appears to be afloat, while allowing visitors on board via an airlock.

These three exceptional projects competed to win the coveted Award for Conservation of £15,000, one of five Awards offered this year. This Award celebrates excellence in the conservation of the cultural heritage in the UK.

THE SHORTLISTS IN FULL

AWARD FOR CONSERVATION 2007
Eura Conservation, Cardiff University and the ss Great Britain Trust
Brunel’s ss Great Britain

The Scottish Conservation Studio for Perth Museum & Art Gallery
A rare silk early 17th-century doublet

National Trust Textile Conservation Studio
The Tobit Table Carpet from Hardwick Hall

AWARD FOR CARE OF COLLECTIONS 2007
Durham University Library
The North East Collections Care Scheme

Book & Paper Conservation Studio, Dundee University Library,
for The Linnean Society of London
The Linnaean Correspondence Project

Beamish Museum and Tyne & Wear Museums
The North East Regional Resource Centre

National Preservation Office
A national assessment of preservation need in libraries and archives 

STUDENT CONSERVATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD 2007
Rachel Morrison and The Courtauld Institute of Art
Surface cleaning of unvarnished paintings

Sarah Maisey and Northumbria University
Materials and ageing of the miners’ Cavell banner from Bowburn

Julie Eklund and the Institute of Archaeology, UCL
Effects of preparation and conservation treatments on DNA

ANNA PLOWDEN TRUST AWARD 2007
Professor Norman Tennent, Fyne Conservation Services,
and Dr James Nobbs, University of Leeds
Colour-matching for ceramic conservation

Dr James Tate, National Museums Scotland, Dr Laurianne Robinet, 
The Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, and Professor Chris Hall,
University of Edinburgh
New light on ancient glass: a development of Raman spectroscopy

David Watkinson and Mark Lewis, Cardiff University
Dry storage of chloride-infested iron

DIGITAL PRESERVATION AWARD 2007
The British Library & UCL Library Services
LIFE (Lifecycle Information for E-Literature)

National Library of New Zealand & The British Library
Web Curator Tool software development project

The National Archives
Active preservation at The National Archives: PRONOM and DROID

Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
& John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester
PARADIGM: Personal Archives Accessible in Digital Media

CRL; OCLC-RLG Programs; NARA; Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt/Main; Humboldt-Universitat Berlin; Bayrische Staatsbibliothek Munchen; nestor; 
DCC; DPE; HATII and National Archives of the Netherlands
Digital Repository Audit and Certification