LAUSR

The Charterhouse (Figure 1), built in1348, has served as a monastery, private mansion, boys’ school, and an almshouse, retaining the last function to this day. The Charterhouse provides a home and care for single people over the age of 60, who are in financial and social need and capable of living independently. The charity’s beneficiaries (known as ‘brothers’) live in private flats but function as a community, sharingmeals in the sixteenthcentury great hall and partaking in social activities. The Charterhouse opened to the public for the first time in its long history in January 2017 with a new museum, learning programme and tour offer. The brothers are integral to sharing the story of the site with members of the public, by volunteering in the museum and offering tours of the Charterhouse site and gardens. The museum opened following a successful 6-year project which aimed to reveal this fascinating site to the public in order to ensure its future preservation. The Charterhouse had secured a Heritage Lottery Fund grant for a project called Revealing the Charterhouse, to create a museum and learning centre and to re-landscape Charterhouse Square, now publicly accessible. The Charterhouse worked in partnership with the Museum of London and with Crossrail (the developer of a new railway line east–west across greater London) during the development of the project, for example excavating the former black death burial ground within the site, which led to the discovery of 25 skeletons that had traces of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis. The new Farringdon East Crossrail station and the re-located Museum of London will open nearby within the next few years, providing increased opportunities for the public to engage with the long history of the site within this intriguing area of London. The Charterhouse is custodian of a rich body of archive and library material, most of which is cared for and displayed on-site. It seeks to preserve its collection for the benefit of the community, researchers and members of the public. Within the on-site museum, objects are displayed within the themes most pertinent to the site: the brothers; schoolboys; governors; Thomas Sutton; nobles; monks; and the dead. The collection chiefly comprises: paintings and drawings; topographical prints; historic silver; social history; historic furniture; and original postcards and photographs. There is also a substantial library including the Thackeray Collection, rare books, biographies, and original ephemera. The exhibition team included independent conservation specialists, the curator, architects, exhibition designers, the onsite museum development team, and technicians from the Museum of London. In terms of books, prints and archives, the project required the examination of 33 proposed exhibits, a proposal for their repair and display, and their conservation treatment. The items chosen for the opening display included a 3.5 m long parchment map; nine bound volumes; 16 prints, letter and single leaf items; and 15 postcards and photographs. In terms of the conservation approach, the project aims were underpinned by the concept of sustainability. This was done by establishing sustainable principles, including environmental measures, both passive and active, and rotation of the objects. By changing the display, one can limit light exposure and degradation of individual items, thereby increasing their longevity. This also creates interest for repeat visitors. Conservation proposals aimed to do the minimum required to make the items safe for handling whilst maintaining their context. This included preserving earlier repairs as evidence of each item’s history and how it had been valued over time. Great care was taken by the architects and designers to ensure that the exhibition space was optimised for long-term display, including ultraviolet filters to minimise light damage and carefully-managed temperature and relative humidity (RH). The cases are not only secure but thoughtfully engineered to provide the maximum viewing opportunity and to make the most of the museum space, which during its renovation was found to include medieval stone and historic grave markers which were then incorporated into the design.