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Lottery Bid Helps Poole Museums Redisplay Logboat

A large Iron-Age log boat is being conserved with sucrose as part of a lottery project to redisplay Poole's Waterfront Museum.  The log boat was moved recently into a purpose-built drying chamber for a year of drying before eventually going on display. Now, the dryers have been installed and the system has been switched on

By summer 2006,  the log boat will be fully conserved, and ready to be craned on to the first floor of the new Waterfront Museum.  This will close a chapter in the museum's history and finally allow the people of Poole to see their impressive log boat.

Keith Jarvis, Archive Collections Officer, Culture & Community Learning, Borough of Poole, said: "Sucrose treatment of wood has been used in America and Germany, but this is the first time any large wood artifact has been preserved by this method in the UK. After several years submersion in a sucrose solution, the log boat is now installed in a specially constructed  and heavily insulated chamber with a bank of seven drying fans, along with humidity monitoring equipment."

As the project continues, research will be published in international journals comparing the sucrose system with the more conventional polyethylene glycol (PEG) method. The project is being carried out by Poole Museums with research direction  by  Jim Spriggs, Head of Conservation at the York Archaeological Trust and Jeremy Hutchins, an Associate Professor at Oslo University in Norway.

Discovered in Poole Harbour in 1964, this is one of the largest surviving log boats of the prehistoric period in the UK and dates to about 300 B.C.  It is believed to be related to two nationally important Iron Age jetties and continental trade taking place on Green Island in Poole Harbour.

Over the years the project has been supported by many sponsors including British Sugar, with recent lifting help from Poole Rowing Club and Poole Rugby club.

Keith Jarvis, Archive Collections Officer, Borough of Poole, tel 01202 262607