Of the dozen museums on the immediate line of Hadrian's Wall, those at Corbridge, Chesters, and Housesteads are directly managed by the Historic Properties North Regional Management Team supported by the Hadrian's Wall Museums Management Committee which meets annually in an advisory role, and is the main organ of communication between EH and the owners of the collections. The Director of Collections is the professional head of the regional curatorial staff, supported by the Collections Co-ordination Team, who shape curatorial policy, and have recently produced the EH Collections Management Manual. The Regional Collections Plan frames the work programme for the 3 museums, and the recently established Museums Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Sir David Wilson will play a vital role in helping to shape the future of EH's museums.
The curatorial remit of the Hadrian's Wall Museums is collections management; concern for the physical and environmental security of the collections, and all aspects of their use and handling. Collection interpretation is a joint responsibility, shared with the Regional Operations Branch. The latter also manage all visitor services and front-of house aspects of the museums, as well as the physical security of the buildings.
The objectives of the Hadrian's Wall Museums are:
All 3 of the Hadrian's Wall Museums are individually registered under the registration scheme for museums and galleries in the United Kingdom operated by the Museums and Galleries Commission, which measures a museum's performance against accepted professional standards.
Probably the best known of the Hadrian's Wall sites, spectacularly situated on the crest of the Whin Sill in some of the wildest country of the Wall area. Owned by The National Trust, and managed by EH, the site's visitor figures average about 130,000 visitors a year. The collections have a long antiquarian history but despite systematic excavations throughout the 19th century, the site had no museum until 1935. Based on the plan of one of the buildings in the civil settlement, Housesteads Museum is a modest building, in keeping with the landscape around it, serving as an introduction to both the fort and the Wall. Its displays are small, comprising mainly religious sculpture, and small finds from the barracks and civil settlement. In reserve storage there are some 2,700 catalogued items including a considerable amount of architectural stonework.
This fort is in private ownership but managed by EH; the visitor figures average about 80,000 a year. The Museum comprises 2 galleries, opened in 1903, to house the archaeological collection of John Clayton, the owner of the Chesters estate between 185490. Unlike the site-specific collections of Corbridge and Housesteads, that at Chesters span the central area of Hadrian's Wall, and include one of Britain's foremost collections of Roman inscriptions, as well as religious sculpture, and domestic and military equipment. The collection, of c 5,500 catalogued items, is owned by the Trustees of the Clayton Collection.
The site of this Roman town is in the guardianship of EH and visitor figures currently average 21,000 a year. The modern, purpose-built museum was opened by EH in 1984. It is a narrow single storied building, with a shop and custodial area at one end, and curatorial offices at the other, with some 200 square metres of exhibition space looking directly on to the site. A basement store has an area of 416 square metres and additional storage is provided by the EH Regional Store, some 6 miles away. The best documented of the 3 collections, the current number of catalogued items stands at 22,575, with probably as many items again still to be catalogued. The ownership of the collection is divided between the Secretary for State and the Trustees of the Corbridge Excavation Fund.
The work of the Hadrian's Wall museums
The collecting policy of the Hadrian's Wall Museums embraces the wider EH Acquisitions, Loans and Disposals Policy, the wishes of the individual collection Trustees, and has also been agreed with other local museums.
It commits the museums to collect material relating to the 3 sites managed by EH, and their immediate vicinity, related archive material, and memorabilia. Recent accessions have included the excavation archives from the 1974 Corbridge by-pass, and the North Wall at Housesteads. The archives from the 1974-80 Housesteads barrack excavations, and the Chesters Roman bridge abutment excavations, are shortly to enter the collections. Other recent accessions have included a new fragment of Roman tombstone from Chesters, the purchase of a Corbridge gold ring from the Duke of Northumberland's collection, and 2 early albums of photographs connected with the Clayton family of Chesters.
Each museum will have a basic computer-based catalogue of all its collections by 2005. To date, Corbridge has received the most attention because it has the largest and best documented collection; 22,575 catalogue records have been entered on the computer database (using the Museum Documentation Association's MODES package), of which about a quarter are a catalogue of small finds and archive holdings, and the remainder are Roman pottery records. All the collections have now been audited and some 6,648 items have been photographed for record purposes. In 1988 the EH Collections Condition Audit identified priorities for conservation and for the Hadrian's Wall Museums remedial conservation is a continuous ongoing programme, carried out chiefly through locally-based conservators, and over the last 10 years has concentrated on sensitive small finds and the archive holdings. There is also an ongoing programme to improve storage and packaging of objects, to enhance their environment and physical security; this is focused on the sensitive metalwork finds, and paper and photographic archive. All the externally-stored stone (no longer in context) is currently being moved into the new Regional Store, in line with the EH target of housing most loose stonework of historical importance by 2001. This will undoubtedly improve the physical condition of the stones, their security, and their accessibility.
The 3 sites and their museums play a pivotal role in the presentation of the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site. Over the last 8 years the sites have been enhanced with new graphics and guidebooks. Three major volumes in the EH Archaeological Report series have been produced for Corbridge and Chesters, a Batsford volume on Housesteads has been published, and the Hadrian's Wall Handbook for Teachers is shortly to be issued.
A recent photographic exhibition illustrating the 1906-14 Corbridge excavations was accompanied by the production of Corstopitum: an Edwardian Excavation, by Dr Michael Bishop. Recent refurbishment at Chesters has involved the replacement of the 350 captions that were painted in 1903 onto the plinths of the sculpture. Other outreach takes the form of direct contact with the public, enquiries, the use of collections, volunteer placements, tours, lectures, seminars, events, and occasionally, with the Education Officer, education days. The supply of photographs of items in the collections, for use in academic and other publications all over the world, is an important element of our work, and a substantial library of images has been built up for sale to the public through the EH Photographic Library.
The 3 collections owe much to the research of the large number of scholars working in the Hadrian's Wall area. EH commissions specific research (eg into the early photographic archive of Corbridge), valuable information relevant to the collections is also obtained as a by-product of research carried out by independent scholars, and other research is the product of EH funded post-excavation analysis programmes (eg the Chesters West Bridge Abutment by the Tyne and Wear Museums Service, or the 1974-80 excavations at Housesteads both currently in progress). In-house research is modest (eg to understand more of the formation of John Clayton's collection), or incidental.
The sites at Corbridge, Chesters and Housesteads, are flagship sites, to be managed by EH as exemplars. The prospect of lottery funding holds considerable promise for the future of the 3 collections. A project which has long been supported by the Trustees of the Clayton Collection, is the extension of the exhibition area at Chesters, where it is hoped that modern interpretation can supply an introduction to the Roman Fort and to John Clayton's archaeological collection, while allowing the current museum to retain its 1903 character. At Housesteads, the enlargement of the exhibition area could improve both presentation and visitor circulation. At Corbridge, it is the lower-profile storage, conservation and documentation aspects that demand the most attention. The adoption of the Hadrian's Wall Management Plan, and the establishment of a Co-ordination Unit to implement it, will also have far-reaching implications for the Hadrian's Wall collections.
