Curator's blog

Frances Bailey is our Lead Curator for Northern Ireland. One of her favourite objects in the collections she helps care for is the 19th-century microscope Mary Ward of Castle Ward was given as a teenager. Not only does it remind her of her own childhood gift, but the microscope had a profound influence on Mary and her future achievements, as Frances explains.

Maria Jordan is Studio Manager of our Textile Conservation Studio at Blickling, Norfolk. It is our only specialist in-house textile conservation treatment facility and is tasked with caring for the over 150,000 individual items in our textile collection. One of Maria's first tasks when joining the studio was conserving some of the oldest and largest tapestries we care for – Hardwick Hall’s '...

Kate Bethune, one of our regional curators in the South West, works on many different projects throughout the year, across lots of different properties. One of her favourites this year was part of our national People's Landscapes programme of events, celebrating the role that the places we care for have played in social change. Paint Freedom, a community art project, was held at one of the ...

The libraries at our places are of particular interest to Hannah Squire, Assistant Curator for National Public Programmes. In recognition of Banned Books Week, a nationwide campaign to celebrate the freedom to read, Hannah takes a closer look at a number of books in the library at Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent and explores the ways in which Vita Sackville-West challenged accepted ...

2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from Plymouth, Devon to Plymouth, Massachusetts. As this anniversary approaches, Curator Alison Cooper takes a deeper look at how this historic voyage and our subsequent transatlantic relationship has shaped, and been shaped by, our places.

Lorna Scott works as a conservation documentation officer, helping to create a permanent record of the conservation work undertaken on our collection items and historic interiors. She spends her days immersed in the beauty and intricacies of our rich and varied collections, all while working entirely at Heelis, the head office of the National Trust in Swindon.

My nan grew up in a workhouse. Now I have the honour of telling stories like hers.

Nearly four years ago, the Trust embarked upon a research project to catalogue approximately 55,000 pieces of furniture in our collections. To date, the Furniture Research team has catalogued 20,000 records. Having reached this milestone, Megan Wheeler, Lead Collections Cataloguer for the project, discusses the importance of recording all classes of furniture and shares some of her favourite ...

Tim Pye, Libraries Curator, is fascinated by a copy of 'Kim' by Rudyard Kipling in the collection at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire and the unexpected connection it holds to Captain Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic.

Elizabeth Green is Lead Curator for Wales. One of her favourite objects is also one of the most unusual in the Trust’s collection – a working steam engine from Penrhyn, Gwynedd. Although it doesn't hang on a wall or sit in a display case, this little locomotive is nonetheless a precious object – one that reminds Elizabeth of visiting Penhyrn Castle as a child.