20 October 2010 Eastbourne is putting a call out for volunteers to come forward and help carry out a huge audit of the town’s local history and archaeology collection and make over 10,000 artefacts from years gone by more accessible to the local community.
Over the next year, Eastbourne Borough Council’s Museum Officer will be working with a team of volunteers to sort through the hundreds of boxes in the basement of the Town Hall and make the collection that includes 2,500 objects, 1,500 photographs and 10,000 archaeological artefacts available for study and research.
The audit will also help to identify artefacts relevant to local schools’ history programmes so that children can get up close and personal with artefacts from pre-historic times, Roman, Saxon, Tudor, Victorian and wartime periods and relate to the people living in Eastbourne over the last 10,000 years.
Eastbourne Borough Council Cabinet Member for Tourism, Cllr Neil Stanley said “This really is a mammoth task that we are very excited to be starting on and really get to grips with the wonderful history collection we have here in Eastbourne. The significant number of items that we have to sort through indicates what a wealth of history we have on our doorstep. The chance to volunteer is a great opportunity for any keen historians to discover the town’s heritage for themselves and help bring some of these amazing pieces back into the community.”
The Council’s Museum service will also be working with volunteers to find ways that aspects of the collection can be put on public display over the next 12 months.
With recent research from VisitBritain identifying heritage as a major attraction for visitors during the staycation era, Eastbourne, with a vast range of historic sites and architecture, is well placed to benefit from visitors looking to rediscover the country’s heritage.
Volunteers of all ages are already making a contribution to the audit in Eastbourne but the Museum Officer is calling out for more people to come forward and help preserve the town’s collection.
For more information on Eastbourne’s collection or to find out about present and future volunteering opportunities, email LocalHistory@eastbourne.gov.uk or call Jonathan Seaman on 01323 410300.
