Moving all the large and often weighty objects from the Large Object Store into new storage was a meticulous and challenging project for the South Georgia Museum team.
It takes four people to move this heavy chair recovered from one of the old whaling stations. Left to right: Bodil, Bob, Helen and Lauren.
The Large Object Store houses all the big historical museum objects that are too large to fit in the normal Object Stores. It is important to maintain detailed records of any move of museum objects, so moving the store was a big project that required time and meticulous record keeping. Three days were needed to complete the move so, in the busiest season ever at the museum, the team had to wait for a rare period of consecutive days when no cruise ships were due to visit.
The old store was an upstairs room in the old Slop Chest and the new stores were created upstairs in the main museum building. Lots of muscle was needed to help move the furniture, sledges and skis, life rings and all manner of other sizeable objects down one set of stairs, across the rough ground and up another set of stairs to the new stores. At the same time the specialist shelving the objects are stored on also needed to be moved, so we were very grateful for the assistance of the GSGSSI Building team.
The whole process had to be carefully documented to ensure we knew exactly where all the historical objects were at every stage, so you will see Curatorial Intern Helen Balfour with her lists and records directing the project throughout.
Watch this short video of the move underway and have a little peak at some of the objects not currently on display; what unexpected things will you see?
At the end Helen looks very happy, and with such heavy work, the workers definitely deserved that cup of tea we see them enjoy in the sun part way through, though the seals look bemused at the unusual activity!