Although all may have looked quiet from the outside of the museum, inside the team have been very busy preparing for the roof repairs to begin at the start of next week. As the contractor team have been building the scaffolding, the museum staff have prepared the galleries inside to make sure that all of the artefacts are safe throughout the works.
Precautions have been put in place to prevent water coming into the museum whilst the roof is being repaired, but we also need to work to the worst-case scenario. With any roof work it is almost impossible to limit the chance of water coming in to zero. For this reason, all of the objects that are normally found in the rooms beneath where the roof is being repaired, have been moved to other rooms in the museum for safekeeping. This amounts to all objects that are stored in our east stores, or displayed in the museum's Honywood, revolutions and medieval galleries, needing to find new homes in other parts of the building for the duration of the works.
Physically moving the museum's collection is only half the battle as all museum objects have to be digitally tracked. This involves updating an object's new location so that everything can be found easily. We have a digital collection system where we can record all known information on each artefact, including its location.
There are some items in the collection which are simply too heavy to move, and so these have been protected in situ with polythene covers. In the unlikely event that water does get into the museum's galleries, even the large, heavy objects will remain safe.
Published: 10 Sep 2026