2019 summary

2019 was a busy year for the Mountain Heritage Trust (MHT) with some major projects, staff changes as well as a range of acquisitions and enquiries. You can download the full report below but here are some highlights:

·       There were 45 acquisitions in 2019 with substantial collections including: the Don Robinson Collection, the Chris Craggs Collection, Ian McNaught Davis’ slide collection and the Dr Gordon Lindsay-Jones Collection.
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·       Lots of work was done to preserve and promote access to existing collections, major projects included:
-       Rehousing and numbering the 43,000 slides in the Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker slide collections
-       Box listing large parts of the George Band and Pete Boardman collections
-       Beginning work to repackage and list Jim Curran’s slides
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·       In 2019 MHT received 178 enquiries from a range of researchers, students, schools, media companies and publishers.

·       All reporting for the Chris Bonington Man and Mountain Heritage Lottery Fund project was completed.

·       MHT successfully bid for a National Lottery Heritage Fund (previously the Heritage Lottery Fund) grant to improve organisational resilience.

·       MHT invested in a new central collections information system, we’re busy populating Axiell’s CALM with lots of catalogue and collections information.

·       Artists Stephen and Margaret Livingstone collaborated with MHT and the University of Durham’s Dr Abbie Garrington in 2018 to produce Scaling the Heights, an exhibition drawing together art,mountaineering history and Action Man figures. 2019 saw the exhibition move to Keswick Museum where it was enjoyed by more than 14,000 visitors.

·       Thanks to funding from the Friends of Blencathra, MHT was able to purchase additional office furniture and refurbish a small building to store non-heritage materials.

·       To share MHT’s collections and stories, we went out to numerous events including: Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, Keswick Mountain Festival, the Mountain Rescue England and Wales conference, a BMC National Council meeting and a BMC Peak Area meeting. We also gave two RGS NorthWest region talks and held a fundraiser with guest speaker Jasmine Paris.

·       We continued work with our National Trust partners at Allan Bank and made progress to working more closely with the University of Cumbria.

·       New Trustees and staff were recruited and an existing member of staff returned from maternity leave.