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Currently there are opportunities to be an Inventory Volunteer at the RAF MUSEUM, WEST MIDLANDS

and starting late September the volunteer role of  Preservation Conservator at WESTON PARK

Generally no previous experience is necessary, projects are overseen by a museum curator or archivist  and training in any volunteer role will be provided by the host establishment .

Anyone interested in helping with Heritage Volunteering projects should contact

Tim Roberts           01743 761257

Heritage Volunteers are teams of committed non-specialist volunteers who work under the guidance of curators and other professionals to help conserve our heritage. Heritage Volunteers undertake projects for:

  • museums
  • historic houses
  • libraries and gardens
  • churches

They give their time to care for collections, record documents and act as guides and stewards.

Projects may include:

  • On-site conservation of books, manuscripts, archives and maps
  • Cataloguing documents and archival listing
  • Conservation of arms and armour, medals and military silver
  • Preventative conservation of textiles, replica work and creation of period costumes
  • Guiding and stewarding in museums, historic houses and gardens.

We worked collaboratively  with Heritage Volunteers from other societies in particular TAS Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton.  We are very fortunate to have so many enthusiastic volunteer members who work well together.

The team is co-ordinated by Tim Roberts, who liaises with the host organisations  and where necessary organises the rota for volunteers.

PROJECTS UNDERTAKEN

The information below gives an idea of the range and diversity of projects undertaken over the years – new volunteers are always welcome.

Small Woods Association  ~   March 2026 ~ on going

The Small Woods Association, based in Coalbrookdale, is a thriving community of experts in the field of sustainable woodland management and social forestry working across the UK, in England, Wales and Scotland.

The Association has in recent years have received from several eminent sources a wide selection of books that are in urgent need of cataloguing. TASW  was approached by the CEO and asked if our  Heritage Volunteers could catalogue this collection of books. Once catalogued they will be accessible for reference, study and research in the Small Woods library at their head office. 

There are an estimated 250 / 300  books relating to Arboreal culture, Woodland Management,  Woodland crafts and many other related topics and they range from the common place to the scholarly and historic. Four members of TASW have started work on this project.

The Labouchère Project ~ February 2023 to March 2026

The Labouchère Project at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum involved reviewing and reordering the papers used by Lady Labouchère in her research into the Darby families. They were the most significant iron founders in the Ironbridge Gorge in the 18th century. The project started in February 2023 in the Long Warehouse at the Museum of Iron. Volunteers worked in pairs on Tuesday afternoons. Three members are working on transcription at home; two others work on an ad-hoc basis making archive cases for artifacts and photographing selected documents.

The Sentinel Project - 2023/4

The Sentinel Project involved conservation of two Sentinel Locomotives dating from the 1870s. They are part of the collection at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum.  From Autumn 2023, a small team of volunteers met on Fridays at the Museum of Iron in Coalbrookdale. The locomotives are housed under the arches of the viaduct and therefore working was subject to the vagaries of the weather.  Despite this, remarkable progress was made by the team completing work on both of the Locomotives in the spring. 

L.T.C. Rolt Collection Project – 2022/23

Tom Rolt (1910–1974) was a writer of industrial history with a focus on railways and waterways, biographies of civil engineering figures such as Brunel and Thomas Telford and ghost stories set against an industrial background. He was also a pioneer of the leisure cruising industry on Britain’s inland waterways and played a role in the preservation movements of both canals and railways - Inland Waterways Association and Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society

It was the wish of Rolt’s widow Sonia and his family that his papers be deposited with the archive at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. The volunteers worked with a professional archivist to catalogue the entire collection - 26 boxes of Rolt’s research, manuscripts, and personal papers. These items are now accessible to researchers and facilitated the staging of a weekend conference at the Museum in 2024 to mark the 50th anniversary of Rolt’s death; they were also accessed by Victoria Owens for her recently published biography “The Life of LTC Rolt”

For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.T.C.Rolt

Weston Park Library 2021

At the request of the Curator at Weston Park a group of 22 volunteers worked on cleaning books over three days in November 2021. This marked the start of a 10 year project at Weston to undertake remedial conservation of the books and digital cataloguing to make the library more accessible.

The Arts Society AGA Rangemaster Project – 2019/22

The volunteers cleaned and catalogued a series of plans, drawings and product designs from the former AGA Rangemaster foundry at Coalbrookdale. The collection was donated to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum when the foundry closed in 2017 and comprises approximately one thousand individual items. The majority of items were large and had been stored for decades either folded or tightly rolled in bundles which was not good for their ongoing preservation.

Drawings were carefully flattened, surface cleaned using archive methods, and potentially damaging items such as paper clips, staples and adhesive tape removed. A temporary catalogue number was assigned, an item description prepared, noting key details, and then photographed to produce a digital record of each drawing in the collection. A catalogue was then compiled.

Aga Rangemaster donated £500 to The Arts Society Wrekin, to assist with the purchase of conservation materials required for this work. The collection can now be stored flat, in a protective environment, away from light sources and excessive fluctuations in temperature. As each item will have a digital copy, once in storage it should not be necessary to keep handling the fragile originals, as the collection will still be available for virtual inspection and research.
The collection is already revealing its potential as a record of the activities of the company; its various corporate incarnations, the companies it worked with and for, and the development of its products, its plant and its machinery. Early 20th century site plans have helped to enhance understanding of the archaeology of the area which is now the Museum of Iron car park.

Future use of the collection has the potential to go beyond the intellectual content of the drawings and could include research areas such as developments in technical drawing practice over the best part of a century, and methods of reproduction used over the same period, from hand-tracing and blueprints to dyeline print and possibly more.

Compton Hall Heritage Project 2018/20

Compton Hall and Laurence Hodson 1863-1933
The Arts Societies Wolverhampton & Wrekin undertook a joint Heritage Volunteer project: researching an important local patron and collector of the Arts and Crafts, Laurence William Hodson of Compton Hall. In 1895 William Morris visited Compton Hall and Laurence Hodson commissioned Morris & Co to redesign the interior. The ceiling is the original for the Morris design called Compton which is still available today

The Heritage Volunteers project involved detailed recording of the interiors of the historic rooms at Compton Hall (now home to Wolverhampton’s hospice Compton Care) and research into Hodson’s original collection. A number of well-illustrated interpretation boards were produced and are now displayed in Crumbles Café open to the public within the hospice grounds.

Tong Church Pulpit Fall 2018/19

The Society supported St Bartholomew’s Church Tong in the cleaning and display of an Elizabethan embroidered Pulpit Fall. It was given to the church in 1635 by Dame Ellinor Harris from Tong Castle and was used as a Pulpit Fall.  It was taken to the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace where it was cleaned, stitched and couched to a backing cloth and then secured to a rigid conservation board.  It is now securely framed and displayed in the church. After so many years of being locked away in a damp vestry it is available for the visiting public to see.

A talk was held at Tong in June 2019 to learn more about the conservation process from Susan Kay-Williams, an Arts Society accredited speaker and then CEO of the Royal School of Needlework. The church has also produced a booklet about the Pulpit Fall and its historical significance. Members assisted with the research.

TAS Wrekin donated £1000 to this important conservation project. 

Craven Dunnill Tile Moulds 2017/2018

Volunteers were asked to clean, describe and photograph a series of Craven Dunnill tile moulds that had been discarded in the 19th century and recovered more recently during excavations at Jackfield site of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. The project enabled a catalogue to be produced.

Printing Blocks 2016/17 

Volunteers worked on a collection of printing blocks held by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum and originally used to print the Coalbrookdale Company Catalogues (two volumes) published 1875 advertising a wide range of cast iron items – The catalogues where sent to agents across the world to promote sales. As part of the documentation photographs were taken of the blocks. 

This project is currently assisting with doctorate research for Liverpool University.

The Elton Collection - 2015/16

The volunteers assisted in the cataloguing of one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum’s largest and most important collections, the Elton Collection. Sir Arthur Elton, 10th Baronet of Clevedon, was a contemporary of John Betjeman at Marlborough and they shared a passion for trains. His career was in the film industry for the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit later taken over by the Post Office. Most of his films were based on the lives of ordinary working people. He produced propaganda films during the war and after was production head for Shell films. He gave his house at Clevedon to the National Trust in 1960. He died in 1973 and his collection was taken by HM Treasury in lieu of death duties. In 1978 the collection was deposited with the Museum. The Collection consists of over 4,000 books on transport and the Industrial Revolution as well as drawings and paintings, film making papers and ephemera.

The John Scott Collection - 2014/15

In August 2013 the Ironbridge Gorge Museum acquired the John Scott Collection from the collector and philanthropist, John Scott. The Collection comprises around 1,300 objects spanning the period 1830-1930. In the main, these objects are single ceramic tiles or panels of multiples of 4 or 8. However, included within the collection are around 30 larger tile panels some of which comprise up to 48 tiles. The tiles represent perhaps the finest collection of ceramic tiles from this period in the UK. The collection is now housed in a dedicated gallery at Jackfield Tile Museum. Before these objects could be put on display, they had to be condition checked, recorded, photographed and have a light clean where necessary. Following on from this initial work, contextual historical research relating to the tiles, the designers and the buildings in which they were previously installed was undertaken. Volunteers from the Wrekin, Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton Societies were delighted to be asked to help with this work.

 

Copyright © 2026 The Arts Society Wrekin, All rights reserved.

 

 

Currently there are opportunities to be an Inventory Volunteer at the RAF MUSEUM, WEST MIDLANDS

and starting late September the volunteer role of  Preservation Conservator at WESTON PARK

Generally no previous experience is necessary, projects are overseen by a museum curator or archivist  and training in any volunteer role will be provided by the host establishment .

Anyone interested in helping with Heritage Volunteering projects should contact

Tim Roberts           01743 761257

Heritage Volunteers are teams of committed non-specialist volunteers who work under the guidance of curators and other professionals to help conserve our heritage. Heritage Volunteers undertake projects for:

  • museums
  • historic houses
  • libraries and gardens
  • churches

They give their time to care for collections, record documents and act as guides and stewards.

Projects may include:

  • On-site conservation of books, manuscripts, archives and maps
  • Cataloguing documents and archival listing
  • Conservation of arms and armour, medals and military silver
  • Preventative conservation of textiles, replica work and creation of period costumes
  • Guiding and stewarding in museums, historic houses and gardens.

We worked collaboratively  with Heritage Volunteers from other societies in particular TAS Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton.  We are very fortunate to have so many enthusiastic volunteer members who work well together.

The team is co-ordinated by Tim Roberts, who liaises with the host organisations  and where necessary organises the rota for volunteers.

PROJECTS UNDERTAKEN

The information below gives an idea of the range and diversity of projects undertaken over the years – new volunteers are always welcome.

Small Woods Association  ~   March 2026 ~ on going

The Small Woods Association, based in Coalbrookdale, is a thriving community of experts in the field of sustainable woodland management and social forestry working across the UK, in England, Wales and Scotland.

The Association has in recent years have received from several eminent sources a wide selection of books that are in urgent need of cataloguing. TASW  was approached by the CEO and asked if our  Heritage Volunteers could catalogue this collection of books. Once catalogued they will be accessible for reference, study and research in the Small Woods library at their head office. 

There are an estimated 250 / 300  books relating to Arboreal culture, Woodland Management,  Woodland crafts and many other related topics and they range from the common place to the scholarly and historic. Four members of TASW have started work on this project.

The Labouchère Project ~ February 2023 to March 2026

The Labouchère Project at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum involved reviewing and reordering the papers used by Lady Labouchère in her research into the Darby families. They were the most significant iron founders in the Ironbridge Gorge in the 18th century. The project started in February 2023 in the Long Warehouse at the Museum of Iron. Volunteers worked in pairs on Tuesday afternoons. Three members are working on transcription at home; two others work on an ad-hoc basis making archive cases for artifacts and photographing selected documents.

The Sentinel Project - 2023/4

The Sentinel Project involved conservation of two Sentinel Locomotives dating from the 1870s. They are part of the collection at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum.  From Autumn 2023, a small team of volunteers met on Fridays at the Museum of Iron in Coalbrookdale. The locomotives are housed under the arches of the viaduct and therefore working was subject to the vagaries of the weather.  Despite this, remarkable progress was made by the team completing work on both of the Locomotives in the spring. 

L.T.C. Rolt Collection Project – 2022/23

Tom Rolt (1910–1974) was a writer of industrial history with a focus on railways and waterways, biographies of civil engineering figures such as Brunel and Thomas Telford and ghost stories set against an industrial background. He was also a pioneer of the leisure cruising industry on Britain’s inland waterways and played a role in the preservation movements of both canals and railways - Inland Waterways Association and Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society

It was the wish of Rolt’s widow Sonia and his family that his papers be deposited with the archive at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. The volunteers worked with a professional archivist to catalogue the entire collection - 26 boxes of Rolt’s research, manuscripts, and personal papers. These items are now accessible to researchers and facilitated the staging of a weekend conference at the Museum in 2024 to mark the 50th anniversary of Rolt’s death; they were also accessed by Victoria Owens for her recently published biography “The Life of LTC Rolt”

For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.T.C.Rolt

Weston Park Library 2021

At the request of the Curator at Weston Park a group of 22 volunteers worked on cleaning books over three days in November 2021. This marked the start of a 10 year project at Weston to undertake remedial conservation of the books and digital cataloguing to make the library more accessible.

The Arts Society AGA Rangemaster Project – 2019/22

The volunteers cleaned and catalogued a series of plans, drawings and product designs from the former AGA Rangemaster foundry at Coalbrookdale. The collection was donated to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum when the foundry closed in 2017 and comprises approximately one thousand individual items. The majority of items were large and had been stored for decades either folded or tightly rolled in bundles which was not good for their ongoing preservation.

Drawings were carefully flattened, surface cleaned using archive methods, and potentially damaging items such as paper clips, staples and adhesive tape removed. A temporary catalogue number was assigned, an item description prepared, noting key details, and then photographed to produce a digital record of each drawing in the collection. A catalogue was then compiled.

Aga Rangemaster donated £500 to The Arts Society Wrekin, to assist with the purchase of conservation materials required for this work. The collection can now be stored flat, in a protective environment, away from light sources and excessive fluctuations in temperature. As each item will have a digital copy, once in storage it should not be necessary to keep handling the fragile originals, as the collection will still be available for virtual inspection and research.
The collection is already revealing its potential as a record of the activities of the company; its various corporate incarnations, the companies it worked with and for, and the development of its products, its plant and its machinery. Early 20th century site plans have helped to enhance understanding of the archaeology of the area which is now the Museum of Iron car park.

Future use of the collection has the potential to go beyond the intellectual content of the drawings and could include research areas such as developments in technical drawing practice over the best part of a century, and methods of reproduction used over the same period, from hand-tracing and blueprints to dyeline print and possibly more.

Compton Hall Heritage Project 2018/20

Compton Hall and Laurence Hodson 1863-1933
The Arts Societies Wolverhampton & Wrekin undertook a joint Heritage Volunteer project: researching an important local patron and collector of the Arts and Crafts, Laurence William Hodson of Compton Hall. In 1895 William Morris visited Compton Hall and Laurence Hodson commissioned Morris & Co to redesign the interior. The ceiling is the original for the Morris design called Compton which is still available today

The Heritage Volunteers project involved detailed recording of the interiors of the historic rooms at Compton Hall (now home to Wolverhampton’s hospice Compton Care) and research into Hodson’s original collection. A number of well-illustrated interpretation boards were produced and are now displayed in Crumbles Café open to the public within the hospice grounds.

Tong Church Pulpit Fall 2018/19

The Society supported St Bartholomew’s Church Tong in the cleaning and display of an Elizabethan embroidered Pulpit Fall. It was given to the church in 1635 by Dame Ellinor Harris from Tong Castle and was used as a Pulpit Fall.  It was taken to the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace where it was cleaned, stitched and couched to a backing cloth and then secured to a rigid conservation board.  It is now securely framed and displayed in the church. After so many years of being locked away in a damp vestry it is available for the visiting public to see.

A talk was held at Tong in June 2019 to learn more about the conservation process from Susan Kay-Williams, an Arts Society accredited speaker and then CEO of the Royal School of Needlework. The church has also produced a booklet about the Pulpit Fall and its historical significance. Members assisted with the research.

TAS Wrekin donated £1000 to this important conservation project. 

Craven Dunnill Tile Moulds 2017/2018

Volunteers were asked to clean, describe and photograph a series of Craven Dunnill tile moulds that had been discarded in the 19th century and recovered more recently during excavations at Jackfield site of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. The project enabled a catalogue to be produced.

Printing Blocks 2016/17 

Volunteers worked on a collection of printing blocks held by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum and originally used to print the Coalbrookdale Company Catalogues (two volumes) published 1875 advertising a wide range of cast iron items – The catalogues where sent to agents across the world to promote sales. As part of the documentation photographs were taken of the blocks. 

This project is currently assisting with doctorate research for Liverpool University.

The Elton Collection - 2015/16

The volunteers assisted in the cataloguing of one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum’s largest and most important collections, the Elton Collection. Sir Arthur Elton, 10th Baronet of Clevedon, was a contemporary of John Betjeman at Marlborough and they shared a passion for trains. His career was in the film industry for the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit later taken over by the Post Office. Most of his films were based on the lives of ordinary working people. He produced propaganda films during the war and after was production head for Shell films. He gave his house at Clevedon to the National Trust in 1960. He died in 1973 and his collection was taken by HM Treasury in lieu of death duties. In 1978 the collection was deposited with the Museum. The Collection consists of over 4,000 books on transport and the Industrial Revolution as well as drawings and paintings, film making papers and ephemera.

The John Scott Collection - 2014/15

In August 2013 the Ironbridge Gorge Museum acquired the John Scott Collection from the collector and philanthropist, John Scott. The Collection comprises around 1,300 objects spanning the period 1830-1930. In the main, these objects are single ceramic tiles or panels of multiples of 4 or 8. However, included within the collection are around 30 larger tile panels some of which comprise up to 48 tiles. The tiles represent perhaps the finest collection of ceramic tiles from this period in the UK. The collection is now housed in a dedicated gallery at Jackfield Tile Museum. Before these objects could be put on display, they had to be condition checked, recorded, photographed and have a light clean where necessary. Following on from this initial work, contextual historical research relating to the tiles, the designers and the buildings in which they were previously installed was undertaken. Volunteers from the Wrekin, Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton Societies were delighted to be asked to help with this work.

 

Copyright © 2026 The Arts Society Wrekin, All rights reserved.