The big clean up

Following the flood on 25th June 2007 Trust staff immediately began the work of getting Kelham Island Museum back in action. Staff swept out ankle deep silt from the main galleries and with the help of a fire engine from the Fire & Police Museum, blasted silt from the car park and lane around the Museum with water pumped from the cellars.

At the same time the Interpretation & Learning Team cleared objects from cases, listing and identifying urgent conservation needs. They worked closely with a team sent down to Kelham from the Sheffield Galleries & Museums Trust who were rescuing items from their Social History Collection which was stored here. The smaller objects, photographs and paper items from the Industrial Collection are safely kept in new lottery funded stores on the top floor in the main museum building.

A specialist clean up firm, Belfors, were called in and they set about removing all the damaged displays and cases; decontaminating the galleries, workshops and stores; and installing dehumidifiers and fans to dry out the building. Belfors brought in a specialist team of French engineers to clean and repair machines and equipment in the Conservation Workshops. A Dutch team worked in the cellar for a while. A multi-national rescue was underway!