The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is perhaps best known for its spectacular gardens and shows, but its strongly educational remit means that over the years it has collected a vast number of books, art, artefacts and archives.
With limited on-site storage, the RHS needed an external home for over 500 items, and the size, value and vulnerability of this collection made it difficult to store, so the RHS turned to DeepStore.
Sarah McDonald, RHS heritage collections manager, said:
“DeepStore is a unique facility that suits all our needs. The option to store items of various sizes, sensitivity and weights on one site is invaluable since our collections include everything from standard bankers’ boxes to custom-made crates and even a very heavy marble bust. The RHS continues to add material to DeepStore on a regular basis.”
The RHS wanted to keep the items together on one site for easier control and access, but few storage facilities could offer the conditions or flexibility to handle the range of items involved.
PAS 198 and PD 5454:2012 (accreditations relating to the storage of archival materials and cultural collections) were also essential, as was tight security and a good reputation in the museum sector.
The highly-secure storage facilities, 150m below the surface in Britain’s largest salt mine, in Winsford, Cheshire, are owned and operated by parent company, Compass Minerals®.
They are naturally free from UV light, flooding and vermin and also offer consistent temperature and humidity levels, perfect for storing artefacts, archives and historical documents.
