Towards the New Kelham

Kelham Officially Opened!!

2009-05-07T19:11:00.019+01:00

Today saw the official opening of the museum by the Duke of Gloucester. After cutting the ribbon His Royal Highness was shown around the new galleries.

This included the areas which have just recently been completed such as our Unexpected Industries and Social History areas.

Stan Shaw has just recently moved into our Little Mesters street and was on hand to show the Duke his knives.

Our Chief Executive explained the changes as they walked around the museum and showed how some of the new
interactive exhibits work!!

The visit ended with a quick preview of The Melting Shop which is due to reopen for our younger visitors in the summer.

War memorials on display

2009-04-20T12:02:00.007+01:00

For the second phase of the museum redisplay an area has been set aside for war memorials. Six memorials have been chosen from the collection, 5 of which require conservation due to having been mounted outside for many years and also having been damaged in the 2007 flood.

The memorials have had many different treatments including washing to remove residue and deposits from the flood, wax treatments to renew colours and preserve and polishing.

The memorials are now on display for our visitors enjoyment.

Our latest conservation

2009-01-07T10:14:00.008Z

Another item that was submerged in flood waters has been restored. The Lister Auto Truck is a three-wheeled towing vehicle which would have been used in the steel industry to tow flat bed trailers around the steel works.

Here is the truck after the floods, before the conservation work started:

It is powered by a two cylinder Lister diesel engine (LR2). The engine number suggests that it was manufactured in the late 60s. It produces a modest 10.5 HP at an engine speed of 2500rpm.

Many parts were removed to allow a detailed cleaning and conservation of it's mechanisms. About 6 litres of flood water was drained from the engine and gearbox.

The truck has not been repainted to show it's condition at the end of its use in the steel works.

Another successful market!

2008-12-10T16:35:00.005Z

Last weekend the museum hosted its annual Christmas Market. With nearly 7000 visitors over the two days this was one of the most successful to date.

Visitors were able to see the new areas of the museum alongside the 71 market stalls where they could buy presents and stocking fillers. There was also a chance to meet Father Christmas and activities to keep the children entertained!

Now we're looking forward to see what next year brings . . .

Christmas market time!

2008-12-02T11:48:00.002Z

Kelham's Victorian Christmas Market is back! This weekend will see hundreds of craft stalls take over the museum's galleries, plus all day entertainment, children’s activities and a chance to meet Father Christmas.

Saturday 6th December 2008 from 10am til 7pm
Sunday 7th December 2008 from 10am til 5pm

Adults £3
Concessions £2
Accompanied children free

Half-term 'Big Draw' activities

2008-10-27T16:57:00.003Z

This week is The Big Draw - a national event aimed at getting everyone drawing. Come and join in special half-term activities at Kelham Island Museum.

This is your chance to make tiles using tools linked to Sheffield's industrial past and to get a first look at the new museum!

Museum opens its doors

2008-10-26T11:00:00.000Z

The museum is once again open to the general public! Come and see the progress made on the refurbishment of the galleries. There's still plenty of work to be done but Kelham is well on the road to recovery. Phase 1 of the refurbishment will be finished in the next few weeks. Phase 2 will be completed next Spring - in the meantime you can still see some of the damage done by the flood.

The museum is open Sunday to Thursday and the River Don Engine will be running twice a day at 12pm and 2pm (plus a special 4pm run on Sundays).

Object restoration – Linley & Sons Bellows

2008-07-24T13:48:00.017+01:00

This set of bellows was one of the many objects contaminated by flood water. The photo shows the bellows before restoration – the green spots are mould growing on the leather. Conservation engineers went through a four stage process to clean and conserve the bellows:

1. Brushing off the mould spores while simultaneously vacuuming the spores away using a HEPA vacuum cleaner
2. Washing down the bellows with mild soap and warm water to damp down any more spores and clean the leather
3. Spraying the leather with anti-bacterial cleaner to kill off any remaining spores
4. Treatment with "Renaissance Wax" to seal the leather and prevent further mould growth

The bellows after cleaning (but before the final waxing).

The bellows were made by Thomas Linley & Sons, Patent Bellows and Portable Forge Manufacturers. Linley & Sons also suffered in the 1864 flood. The insurance claims register shows they had to pay out for cleaning bills, temporary fencing and “Wages paid to Night Watchman before fence could be erected”. It all sounds very similar to the measures taken at Kelham after the more recent flooding!

Linley & Sons lost 6 dozen pairs of bellows, and others had to be repaired before they could be sold. Their biggest loss was £135 worth of elm planks, although not all the wood that was swept downstream was lost forever – the Linleys also paid out 14 shillings on railway fares for “Messengers in search of Missing Timber” and £1 18s 6d for “Carriage and Cartage of recovered Timber”.

Bessemer gets new coat of paint

2008-06-23T10:01:00.002+01:00

The Bessemer Converter which guards the entrance to Kelham Island Museum is getting a new paint job thanks to volunteers from Sheffield Forgemasters.

The converter is one of only three left in the world and was used to convert pig iron to steel, marking the beginning of mass steel production.

Restoring the River Don Engine

2008-06-06T10:50:00.003+01:00

Kelham Island Museum's famous River Don Engine is being restored to working order. Damaged by the floods in June 2007, work is underway to clean, restore and repaint it. Forgemasters are supporting the project with voluntary help and Dorothea Restorations have been commission to undertake this eight week project.

Great Flood Easter Event

2008-03-18T16:40:00.003Z

Kelham Island Museum will be open to the general public for three days next week (Tuesday 25th – Thursday 27th March, 11am to 4pm) for a one-off Easter event that remembers the Great Sheffield Floods of 1864. The idea is to let visitors experience what it was like to live through the Floods of 1864 when the Dale Dyke Dam burst.

Activities include drop-in craft sessions, where children can take part in activities carried out by a Victorian working class child, re-enactments of the events surrounding the 1864 flood and educational workshops. Pictures of the Victorian and more recent floods will be on display in the Museum.

The activities are all free and the museum café will be open to serve refreshments. For more information, contact the Museum on 0114 2722106.

Press release about the event (pdf)

Get set...go!

2008-02-27T10:28:00.001Z

The development of the new displays to replace those that were lost in the floods has started. With funding finally in place a new team has been appointed to assist with the process. The team are currently gathering and developing ideas for the new displays. Let us know your thoughts...

Tree felling at Kelham

2008-02-25T10:35:00.004Z

As part of the long-term flood defence plans for Kelham Island, the week before last saw the cutting down and removal of some of the trees on the river banks and small islands surrounding the Museum.

The tree felling team brought a huge portable crane down to the end of the island. For each tree that needed to be felled, the crane hoisted one of the tree surgeons up into the air to attach chains around the upper branches. Once the chains were secure, the tree surgeon abseiled down to the ground and sawed through the trunk, so that the crane could lift the whole tree away. Not a job for people who don’t like heights!

Temporary flood defences in place

2008-01-02T14:59:00.000Z

Temporary flood defences are now up around Kelham Island, replacing the walls destroyed by the water in June.

Update (23/01/08): Despite the large amounts of rain on Monday and rapidly rising water levels, the river didn't reach the level of the island - the flood defences have yet to be tested!

Consultation at the Christmas market

2007-12-04T11:27:00.001Z

At last weekend’s Christmas market we asked people to tell us their memories of Kelham Island Museum and to help us start thinking about what the restored museum should be like.

Here are a few of the things people can remember:

“A place to bring visitors – so proud of our heritage!”

“The street of Little Mesters provided a fascinating insight to old Sheffield – just what Kelham should do.”

“The noise and fascination of the steam engine at full throttle. What a feat of engineering.”

And here are some of the suggestions for the new museum:

“More human stories and reminiscences”

“Must have plenty of interactive hands on exhibits so that children are interested and involved.”

“Hands on activities for the grown ups as well as for the children.”

“Can you put a flood mark on one of the walls and a new section dedicated to the flood?”

What are your memories of the museum? Do you have any suggestions for the future? Click on 'comments / leave a comment' below to add your thoughts and see what other people have written.

The River Don Engine

2007-11-27T14:00:00.000Z

The River Don Engine has turned under steam! There's a lot of work left for the engineers to do before it's restored to its former glory, but this is great news.

(Photos show the engine room covered in mud and the River Don Engine before the flood. Click on the photos to see bigger versions.)

New flood defences

2007-11-27T13:53:00.000Z

Sheffield City Council will be installing a temporary flood defence wall right round the Island in December to replace those destroyed. Eventually a new wall will be designed and built.

Funding the recovery

2007-11-27T13:36:00.001Z

The insurance companies and loss adjusters have been very helpful during the recovery process and made interim payments to ensure we could achieve the targets we set. The collections insurers have provided a settlement, although this is unlikely to meet all the conservation requirements and some hard decisions will have to be made. There is still a lot of work to be done in completing the cleaning and conservation work in the large object store. The final settlement for the building work and re-instatement of the galleries will be made shortly and then we can plan for the full re-opening of all the galleries.

A bid was submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund for £50,000 to support the “Towards the New Kelham” project. This was successful and it has enabled the appointment of specialists to plan and manage the conservation work on the collection and contribute to the re-opening through consultation and project planning work.

Schools re-opening

2007-11-27T13:30:00.000Z

The original hope was to re-open for schools in September. This meant a huge push to get spaces ready for school groups. The upper floors of the museum were largely unaffected, although heating systems had to be replaced. Ground floor spaces were identified that needed to be repaired as soon as possible to accommodate some activities that had gone on in the main galleries.

The education programme relaunched as planned and hundreds of school children have enjoyed living history sessions on "1940s: Wartime Children" and "Christmas at the Workhouse".

The big clean up

2007-11-27T13:26:00.000Z

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!

Press Release: July 2nd 2007

2007-07-02T17:00:00.000+01:00

Kelham Island Museum Fights to Save Collection

A frantic salvage operation by staff at Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield continues today to save its valuable industrial collection from the devastating flood waters. The museum is officially now closed until further notice since the River Don burst its banks recently causing extensive damage to infrastructure and some of the larger industrial machinery at the museum. The mighty 12,000 horse power River Don Engine will need lots of care and attention to bring it back to its former glory but smaller items from the collection were fortunately saved from the destructive power of the water by only half an inch.

John Hamshere, Executive Director said “it is sad to see the extent of flood damage to the museum, especially after 13 years of hard work by the Trust and the staff who have made Kelham Island such a successful museum. Staff have been working exceptionally hard to save the collections and move items to safety on higher ground. The clean up operation will take some time to complete but our main priority is to ensure Sheffield’s industrial heritage collections are preserved for the people of Sheffield and that the museum will be open to the public as soon as possible.” A thick layer of mud and oil covers almost everything at the museum and staff have been working around the clock with the clearing up operation. The power of the water is much in evident in the car park next to the River Don where the tarmac has been lifted up in waves and smashed back down. The clean up is expected to take some time to complete, but staff are hoping that the museum will be open again to school groups in the near future.

The museum has unfortunately lost the newly opened SCOPE science activity zone which was opened by David Blunkett, but the transport gallery, which was part of a new £1.1 million lottery funded project on the mezzanine level, has been saved along with a successful attempt by staff to save the unique Simplex car which is a star attraction at the museum.

Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust, which runs Kelham Island Museum has been working with Sheffield G alle r ies a nd Museums Trust to create a combined effort to save the area’s heritage. Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, who housed the City’s social history collection at Kelham Island, have been working hard in the clean-up effort at Kelham Island, salvaging important historical documents and items which are irreplaceable.

The museum would like to say thank you to the many offers of help and support which they have received from well-wishes and especially to the Fire and Police Museum in Sheffield who have been invaluable by pumping out water from the museum and grounds.