Gunnersbury Park Museum has recently secured a grant from the John and Ruth Howard Charitable Trust to support local schools and community centres in their quest for knowledge.

The grant of £1,850 will be used to provide an archaeology loan box to schools and community centres in Hounslow and Ealing which can be borrowed to engage children in learning more about history in a fun and interactive way.  

The box will contain a mix of original objects, maps, archaeologists' tools and a teacher’s guidebook with suggestions for classroom activities, quizzes and games. This new loan box will complete a trio for the Museum which has recently set up two other grant-funded loan boxes (for Victorians and World War 2) which are proving very popular. The World War 2 box has also proved very popular with some of the boroughs elderly residents and is being used for reminiscence work.  

These boxes can be lent to schools for two weeks at a time and provide some museum education support for schools who, for various reasons, cannot make the journey to Gunnersbury.

For further information about loan boxes and all aspects of the Gunnersbury Park Museum Education Service, contact Clare Oliphant or Lisa D’Agostino on 0208 992 2247 or gp-museum@laing.com

The museum has recently received funding for various projects from the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS)

The NADFAS Greater London Area Committee has recently paid £600 for a textile conservator to provide a survey of the museum’s extensive costume and textile collections. As part of this survey the conservator made recommendations as to how to improve the storage and is going to set up two training days for volunteers who will then be able to work on the stored collections.

The volunteers are all from the local Ealing branch (EDFAS) and will be trained to make archive storage bags and padded hangers for the museum’s magnificent eighteenth and nineteenth century dresses. In order to promote this project, EDFAS have agreed to grant the museum £250 for the conservation materials.

EDFAS has also become involved in the museum’s education activities and has awarded the museum £600 for a Young Arts Project, allowing the museum to provide some free activities for children during the summer holidays.

EDFAS volunteers have already helped the museum by staffing the Temple during Open House weekend last September, by making and mending costumes for the museum education interpreters, and by offering to be help with the spring clean of all the displays in the Victorian Kitchens before they open to the public at Easter.

(Museum press release, March 2009)