Welcome to the Museum Trust!

This site is a monument in itself to those national treasures which are worthy of preserving.

Make the Most of Your Day at the Local Museum

A trip to a local museum can be a great – and cost-effective – day out. However, as there is so much information contained in this displays it is sometimes easy to miss the best bits. Here are a few tips to help you to make the most of your day out. If there is a guide available then make use of it! Wandering aimlessly around the museum will not make best use of your time and you are likely to miss some crucial exhibits. Many museums have printed guides or audio guides which can be rented for a small fee. They are usually well worth the money.

Wear comfortable shoes. You will not be able to concentrate on enjoying yourself if your feet start to hurt, so wear an old and trusted pair of shoes to avoid unnecessary distraction.

Give yourself enough time to see everything on display; so try to arrive as early as possible. You do not want to have to rush around the rooms. Equally, try to avoid those times where there may be visiting school parties or crowds of people. (more...)

Making Money on Antiques

Although we all live in hope of buying and selling antiques, few of us are able to make a living from it. Some of it is down to luck, but much of it is down to pure skill and determination.

On a winter's day the last thing you want to be doing is trawling around car boot sales or house clearances. But as tempting as it is to stay tucked under the duvet covers, the business will not run itself. You have to have tons of self-discipline to go out there and search for memorabilia and antiques.

Secondly (and surprisingly basically), you have to know what you are doing. A dummy's guide to antiques will not, in all likelihood, give you the grounding and even basic knowledge you need to make money from buying and selling antiques. (more...)

Glorious Yester Year

There are many things that we now consider trendy and right in fashion that were actually in vogue centuries ago. It is amazing how the wheel of fashion and taste goes round and comes up right back in the same place every so often! Or maybe it is a case that excellently crafted designs just never go out of fashion.

A look at the Victoria and Albert Museum will illustrate the point of how furniture and design from more than a hundred years ago, or so, is as popular now as ever. Victorian shutters and furniture, Art Nouveau collections and Peter Rabbit, all of which first appeared over a hundred years ago are now suddenly as fresh as they were all that time ago.

Items in the Victoria and Albert African collection still appear as exotic and unusual as they did so many years ago, time has not faded the awe that we feel when we see such delicate jewellery and artwork of times gone by. (more...)

New Career, Old Surroundings

Those looking for career inspiration might be interested in working in some capacity for a museum, as this encompasses many different types of jobs. From curator to gift shop assistant to antique mirror repair, there are many different careers within the umbrella of the museum industry.

The one job many people associate with museums is that of curator. This job needs skill, application and qualifications, often at master's degree level but is intensely rewarding and worth the hard study. This can include finding items for the museum, caring for them, even restoring them and it is vital to have an in-depth knowledge about the subject matter.

They are also responsible for putting on special exhibitions and temporary collections which can be extremely exciting putting on something new for the outside world. It is a myth that the museum environment is stuffy and boring, far from it, it is actually exciting and dynamic, involving research and new technologies. (more...)