Integrated archive storage solution for The Postal Museum

A Whittan Group Company

Located in Central London, The Postal Museum (formerly the British Postal Museum & Archive) is a museum run by the Postal Heritage Trust, which looks after over 400 years of postal heritage, including the archive of Royal Mail Group PLC and Post Office Ltd. The museum exhibits objects reflecting the development of postal history. Records in the Archive are designated as being of outstanding national importance by the Arts Council, and are on the UNESCO memory of the World UK Register.

The historic records held in the Archive deal with essential bits of everyday life through and beyond the delivery of mail. All aspects of this unique history, from employment records to stamp artwork, are held within the Archive, one of the oldest business archives in the world.

The collections are varied, covering subjects from social history to transport, pensions to publicity material. They include posters and artwork by the giants of graphic design, films produced by the iconic General Post Office (GPO) film unit, telegrams sent by the Royal family, and stamp collections of every British stamp issued from 1840 to the present day.

The majority of records held are Public Records and are available for the public to view on site. The Archive is free to visit, and is used by a variety of people, from family and social historians, to design students and media production companies.

The Brief

The Archive occupies two floors of Calthorpe House – a former factory, office building and construction base – which has been the new home for The Postal Museum since 28 July 2017.

Prior to then, the Archive had been based in nearby Mount Pleasant since 1992, with many larger museum items put into storage away from Central London. The newly refurbished Museum provides an opportunity to gather and store all archival items under one roof.

Link51 began an association with the Archive in 2013, in an advisory capacity only. At this stage, work to transform Calthorpe House had only just begun. With over 19,000 standard acid free archival boxes, a host of uniforms, paintings and a vast array of irregular sized items to accommodate, including the Archive’s significant stamp collection. Link51’s valuable early contribution included space utilisation advice based on a storage solution consisting predominately of tracked mobile shelving. This allowed The Postal Museum to accommodate its material in an efficient manner, increasing the amount of future expansion space on site.

As the refurbishment work on the building was well underway in 2015, the Postal Heritage Trust officially tendered for a storage and shelving supplier to provide a solution for the Museum’s full inventory of historical items, stored in Central London. The project was won by Link51 on account of the quality of their designs for the new system and cost.

On both floors, the use of mobile shelving

units maximises storage capacity, providing

access to the entire collection and integrated

shelving, racking and plan chests.

Various shelving bay profiles were used to match

the different sized archive boxes used.

“Link51 demonstrated focus and perseverance to get The Postal Museum shelving contract. They quickly understood our collection and needs and came up with a simple and effective design that incorporated all our varied requirements. Their product is sturdy, well-constructed and good value for money.”Gavin McGuffie, Senior Archivist, The Postal Museum

The Solution

First Floor

Once the floor screed was laid, tracks for the mobile units were installed on both floors of the Archive in preparation for the installation. On the first floor, where shelving caters for standard archival boxes, records management boxes and volumes, Link51 installed 37 mobile bases, each fitted with 12 bays of Stormor shelving. The shelving used a mixture of 15 bay profiles, each providing a shelving solution to suit pre-determined box heights. Running on the in-situ tracks, all mobile units are moved by tri-spoke handwheels and, to help access, were split into 4 blocks. A number of fixed bays were also included in the overall mix.

Opposite the mobile units, Link51 fixed wall mounted picture racks to facilitate the hanging of the many historical pictures, fine art and prints held in the collection.

Ground Floor

On the ground floor the storage area featured a separate secure vault, housing high value artefacts, as well as a store to house a mix of boxed items, large binders, rolled items, large format plans, drawings, uniforms and pictures.

In the vault, Link51 installed various static shelving bays along side some of the Museums existing storage products. To maximise the rest of the storage area, a further 22 mobile bases were installed, offering shelving bays in widths from 800 to 2565mm in various profiles, including pigeon hole storage and textile hanging bays.

The installation also included:

- Plan chest bases

- Cantilever storage for rolled long plans

- Wall mounted picture racking

On both floors, the use of mobile shelving units maximises the available storage capacity, providing access to the entire collection and incorporates storage for the Archive’s fragile formats.

To store the very large and varied

uniform collection, including

examples of uniforms worn by

delivery and post office counter

staff; hanging garment rails were

integrated into the shelving.

Plan chests were located under Longspan shelving and mounted onto mobile

bases. The bespoke design of the plan chests uses all of the available space. This

creates a fully functional working area, where the bases can be closed, so aisles

are accessed easily.

Picture racking was fixed along the

wall to make use of the space.

Email: Info@whittan-storage.com www.whittan-storage.com

Tel: 0800 169 5151

This publication shows general concepts only, and should not be used as a guide for specific design or assembly purposes. Whittan reserves the right to alter the specification on any of these products, in the customers interest, without prior notification.

STORAGE SOLUTIONS Whittan is the UK’s largest manufacturer and supplier of steel shelving, pallet racking and lockers. We are able to offer a comprehensive range of products and services, to meet the demand for rigorous and effective storage management; for all types of industries and requirements.

From turnkey complex solutions, through to more simple requirements; we are able to supply storage solutions using one of our industry leading branded products.

l Pallet Racking brands; Apex and Link51

l Locker brands; Probe and Link

l Shelving brands; including Euro, Stormor, Stockrax, and Probe

l Longspan ranges; from Polypal, Apex and Link51

Our vast product range caters for all storage requirements; from Pallet Racking for warehouse environments, to heavy duty, static and mobile shelving and small parts storage for offices or stock rooms, and lockers - Whittan has the solution.

The excellent quality of our UK based manufacturing processes and products, is matched by our commitment to providing a wide array of services and comprehensive support to all our customers.

A Whittan Group Company

PALLET RACKING SOLUTIONS

A Whittan Group Company