Heritage Volunteers
TAS Heritage Volunteers are teams of committed volunteers who work under the guidance of curators and other professionals to help conserve our heritage. They undertake long and short term projects for:
- Museums
- National Trust properties
- Historic houses
- Libraries
- Gardens
They dedicate time to care for collections, record documents, and often act as guides and stewards.
Projects undertaken might include:
- On-site conservation of books, manuscripts, archives and maps
- Cataloguing of documents and archival listing
- Conservation of arms and armour, medals and military artefacts and silver
- Preventative conservation of textiles, replica work and the creation of period costumes
- Reclamation and upkeep of gardens
- Guiding and stewarding
The TASDAG Heritage Volunteer group currently has an ongoing project at Drumlanrig Castle under the supervision of accredited freelance book conservato, Caroline Bendix.
Up until March 2020 and the onset of the Covid pandemic they had been working fortnightly on the books in the late Duke of Buccleugh’s Study.
The Team recounted that they spent three training days at the Castle with Caroline. To begin with, she explained exactly what the TAS training would involve, and gave an overview of the reference materials we would be provided with. She went on to detail information about the care and conservation of the various types of book bindings we might encounter.
The second day, a practical workshop session, was where we learned about completing a form for each book we worked on. Next, we began dusting, and were shown how to actually repair the books, under Caroline’s very supportive and patient supervision. Sadly our work has been put on hold due to the pandemic but we are looking forward to getting started again soon.
If heritage volunteering is something you are interested in, this might be a role for you; you would have an opportunity to work alongside professionals in the field, and a chance to spend time in one of these places as part of a TASDAG team. Dumfries and Galloway has many heritage volunteering opportunities in its galleries, museums, gardens for Members. Please contact our Chairman, Sarah McConnel, or email her at dumfriesgalloway@theartssociety.org for more information.