Leading Conservators Give New Life to a Mediaeval Masterpiece and a Painting the Size of a Bus

- The Pilgrim Trust Conservation Awards 2004 Shortlist -

London, 5 April 2004 - This year’s shortlist for the 2004 Pilgrim Trust Conservation Award, the UK’s leading award in the conservation field, showcases some exceptionally impressive projects. The shortlist includes the conservation of a breath-taking Victorian painting of the Battle of Hastings, the size of a double decker bus, the revival of the Carved Room at Petworth House containing Turner watercolours and rare carvings, and the conservation of a 14th-century altarpiece, one of Britain’s greatest surviving national treasures.

The shortlist of seven was revealed as the judges visited St James’s Church Bermondsey to see and hear a landmark organ built at a time when Bach’s music was first being played in England. Derelict and unplayable for the past 50 years, the organ has been restored to its original state by specialists Goetze and Gwynn.

Liz Forgan, Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund, who is chairing the Awards Judges, said: “I am deeply impressed by the calibre of the shortlisted projects this year. Each and every one of them displays an incredibly high standard of conservation skills and professionalism. Conservation plays an integral role in our heritage and the Conservation Awards continue to highlight this.”

Shortlist for the Award for Conservation, worth GBP15,000. This Award celebrates excellence in completed conservation or restoration projects in museums, galleries, historic buildings, libraries and archives.

• The Carved Room at Petworth House. The National Trust has entered its conservation and historical re-arrangement of the contents of the immensely important Carved Room at Petworth House, West Sussex, including the reinstatement of carvings by Grinling Gibbons, and four landscapes by Turner commissioned for the room, an almost unique survival.
  
  
• The 1829 J C Bishop organ at St James Bermondsey, SE London. This project, by Martin Goetze and Dominic Gwynn, brought to full working order the derelict 19th-century organ, a unique survival from a period of rapid change in musical tastes. This was done through reconstruction in the style of the original organ-builder, while retaining as much as possible of the original components. Thanks to this, it is again in regular use for services and concerts.
  
  
• The Thornham Parva Retable. This exquisite 14th-century altarpiece was painstakingly conserved by the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge, and re-installed in St Mary’s Church, Thornham Parva, Suffolk, in an environmentally controlled case specially designed and built for the church.
  
  
• The Battle of Hastings painting, a monumental 27 by 17 foot work by the Victorian painter F W Wilkin, was found in a torn and tattered state after 120 years of neglect. This dramatic representation of an iconic moment in history was restored to its former glory by the English Heritage Conservation Studio and now hangs in its original position in the Great Hall at Battle Abbey, Sussex.
  
  
• The Martyrs’ Memorial, Oxford, standing in the heart of the university city, had suffered decades of decay and erosion by traffic pollution. Nimbus Conservation Ltd cleaned and repaired the monument, re-modelling the three statues of the martyrs, protecting them from pigeons and restoring the stone steps. After years of being hidden behind hoardings, the Memorial has once again become a striking landmark and meeting-place for Oxford’s residents.
  
  
• The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, holds an internationally recognized collection of historic wallpapers, ranging from William Morris designs to Beatles and Manchester United papers from the 20th century. Conservators at the Gallery designed innovative storage methods to protect the wallpaper rolls from damage while also achieving greater public access to this important and fascinating collection.
  
  
• The Art of Conservation exhibition held in 2003 is the entry from the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate. The exhibition displayed paintings, drawings and prints from the gallery’s collections not normally seen because of their poor state of repair. It explained to the general public why objects need care and treatment and what happens in the conservation studio. Visitors had the chance to see behind the scenes at the gallery and were invited to contribute to the work needed through sponsorship.

Also announced today are the shortlists for the Student Conservator of the Year Award, worth GBP10,000 to be divided between the winning student and their training institution, and the Anna Plowden Award, worth GBP2000 for an outstanding project furthering conservation research and innovation. Full details are available from the Awards website: http://www.consawards.ukic.org.uk/

The winners will be announced on 22 June 2004 at a presentation ceremony at the British Library.

Sponsored by the Pilgrim Trust, the Awards are also supported by key organisations in conservation - the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), English Heritage, the National Preservation Office, the Institute of Paper Conservation and the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation.

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Notes to editors:
For further information on the Conservation Awards please visit the website at: http://www.consawards.ukic.org.uk/ or contact Fiona Cameron, Media and Events Manager at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, on 020 7273 1459 or email [email protected]

The Digital Preservation Award is part of the Pilgrim Trust Conservation Awards. The full shortlist for the Digital Preservation Award, worth GBP5,000, which recognises leadership and achievement in the developing field of digital preservation, is available from Anna Arthur PR - Email [email protected]

Judging Panel members: Liz Forgan OBE, Chair of the Judges for 2004 and Chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Scott Trust ; Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent of The Times; Professor Jonathan Ashley-Smith, Senior Research Fellow in Conservation Studies at the V&A Museum; James Hervey-Bathurst, President of the Historic Houses Association and Rosalind Savill CBE, Director of the Wallace Collection. The Anna Plowden Trust Award for Research and Innovation in Conservation is judged by the Trustees.

The Pilgrim Trust was founded in 1930 by Edward Stephen Harkness of New York to award grants for some of Great Britain’s more urgent needs and to promote the country’s future well-being. In 2003 the Pilgrim Trust made 97 grant commitments totalling £1.6 million, to projects involved in social welfare, art and learning, preservation, cataloguing and conservation of records and the repair of historic churches. Further information on the Trust is available at http://www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk/

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