Delve Deeper: Specialist tours

Delve deeper into our collection of more than 2.5 million objects on our specialist tours and talks series, led by one of our expert curators, researchers or conservators.

The Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre is home to Royal Museums Greenwich's stored collections and state-of-the-art conservation studios. Since the development of our new collections centre in 2018, we are able to share our hidden treasures with the public, and showcase the skills and expertise of our conservation and storage teams.

Our specialist tours and talks will be centred around a different theme or topic each time – find out more about the talks on offer below.

Treasures from the Thames

Thursday 25 July 2024, 7 - 8.30pm

Come behind the scenes at the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre to discover a number of treasures from the Thames.

Despite a long history, mudlarking, or searching the banks of the River Thames for lost or discarded treasures, has become an increasingly popular activity in recent years. Join us to trace the flow of items discovered on the banks of the river through our stores, and uncover the histories within.

This tour will be given by Dr Hannah Stockton, who is currently Curator of Maritime London and the Merchant Marine at Royal Museums Greenwich, where she has been for 6 years. Her role works with a range of collections, from furniture and oral histories to Cutty Sark. Building on PhD research on the Thames in the 1700s, she works on local maritime histories and how they are represented within the collections and museum.

Book tickets (select 25 July using the calendar)

Preserving and presenting the polar collections at the National Maritime Museum

Thursday 15 August 2024, 7 - 8.30pm

This tour will use three main objects to focus on three aspects of the work undertaken by the conservators and curators at Royal Museums Greenwich.

Aisling Macken, one of our Textile Conservators, will talk about what conservation process is required to make unique and delicate objects ready for display in galleries, as well as how the collection has been used to inform current scientific studies of the 1845-48 Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition. Aisling has worked at the Museum for five years and her role focuses on working with the Museum’s textile collection, including uniforms, clothing, flags and sailor’s craftwork, preparing these objects for display and loan, as well as assessing new acquisitions and packing objects for storage.

The next half of the tour will be led by Jeremy Michel, Senior Curator of Maritime Technology. By using a single object as the starting point, we will see how the research and stories that cover the object help our understanding of what we have from Franklin’s expedition, where it came from and the politics and personalities involved. Jeremy has worked at the Museum for 22 years, with a recent focus on the polar collections, including co-curating the Polar Worlds gallery. His wider responsibilities include managing the curators overseeing the ships’ plans, historic photographs, small boats, ship models collections and the Cutty Sark.

Book tickets (select 15 August using the calendar)