SCIENCE MUSEUM BEGINS MAMMOTH MOVE OF HISTORIC ITEMS TO NEW SWINDON FACILITY

Historic items from the Science Museum Group Collection in London are being moved into their new home, a purposebuilt collection management facility at the National Collections Centre on the former RAF Wroughton Airfield near Swindon.

This new facility, equivalent in size to 600 double-decker buses, provides the stable environmental conditions essential for the long-term preservation and care of its internationally significant collection.

It features conservation laboratories, research areas and photography studios alongside a vast storage hall with 30,000 metres of shelving for the collection.

Alongside the storage facilities, the 545-acre site has large open areas, native woodlands, runways – and one of

the UK’s largest solar farms.

The new facility enables the museum to better store, conserve, research and photograph its unique collection, while improving the process of displaying items in its five museums and increasing the number of items it will be able to loan to UK and international institutions.

Although the process to digitise and pack 300,000 historic objects has been underway for several years, the museum team only began moving objects from its Blythe House object store in London into their new home in May.

The collection will be accessible through public tours of the Wroughton facility, and freely available online through the world’s most extensive online collection of science, technology, engineering and medicine.

Swindon Brewery starts building new neighbourhood pub

Swindon family brewery Arkell’s has finally started work on its £4 million new pub. Christened The Strawberry Thief, it is being built at Tadpole Garden Village, North Swindon.

Brewery Managing Director, George Arkell, said: “It has been a long and challenging year for us all and it is fabulous to now look forwards not backwards. The Strawberry Thief is the biggest project we have undertaken in years. We are immensely proud to be investing in Swindon; it’s our home town and we can’t wait to see the build take shape and evolve into a fantastic neighbourhood pub.”

The brewery bought the land in North Swindon from developer Crest Nicholson in 2018.

The pub has been designed by Malmesbury-based Clark & Maslin and Concorde BGW Group. Swindon construction company Edmont will build the pub.