Blog at the Ballast

We've lots planned for the day, you can view shipbuilding and locomotive plans, have a look at or impressive collection of ship photographs and postcards or just have a look around our premises! For kids we've got word searches, colouring in our collections and creating your own plans! We've also looked out our embossing presses!

Share your discoveries with us at #ballast30 we can't wait to see what you find!

This week we were challenged on twitter by the Irish Jesuit Archives in Dublin to participate in #archivelife. Over 7 days we are sharing a new image of the Trust in black & white with no humans and no explanations.

So for this weeks Friday photo, here's a look at what the photographs we've been sharing of inside the Trust with no humans and no explanations...

As part of our continued social media campaign to celebrate and raise awareness of the Trust's 30th anniversary, throughout July and August on Twitter we have been sharing extracts from Bill Lind's diary and personal correspondence. Continuing on from #Ballast30 where we shared facts all about the Trust from our favourite object to understanding how we catalogue ship plans.



With #Onthisday we have been recalling what was happening at the Trust during 1988, the year the Trust formally began to carry out its objectives. Bill and his team initially began working at the temporary accommodation provided by Malcolms' of Brookfield, however it was the decision by Trafalgar House to liquidate its Scott Lithgow premises in Port Glasgow that would see the Trust begin a massive operation to rescue and list the huge volume of commercial and technical papers of Scott Lithgow's. The enormity of this task enabled the Trust to relocate to the Joiner's shop at the Kingston Yard in Port Glasgow, providing a base on site, this became the home of the Trust for the next 3 years, until March 1992.


It is important to reflect upon the number of collections both Bill and his team worked through. We will be sharing images of some of the highlights of these collections, similar to the one above, in the lead up to our publication later on in the year.


~ Jennifer Brunton
   Archives Assistant

~ Jennifer Brunton, archives assistant (graduate trainee).