A field trip to Parliament

Due to the restrictions on taking photographs at the house of lords, I only have the one picture below, which is unfortunately not great quality – but hey ho, but that than nothing!

We met Caroline Babington and Lara Artemis whilst at the Houses of Lords, who are the Collections Care Managers for Paintings and Archives.

Caroline gave us a tour through some of the key rooms at the House of Lords, which was fascinating. Being a paintings specialist, Caroline gave us an insight into some Englands most prestigious frescos, which is one of the biggest collections in Europe.

Later Lara took us through the conservation and binding studios, which were part of the Queen Victoria Tower and were wonderful. Their approach to conservation has changed over the years concentrating more on preservation management in the last few years as a method to sustain the heritage of the collection as it stands at the moment. We also got a visit to the Act store, which you will often see in TV programmes – again no photographs sadly as it was an absolutely incredible store.