Blog at the Ballast

We actually have very few images of Ballast Trust staff and volunteers at work. I've pulled together some from the early years based in the Joiner's Shop in Port Glasgow along with a few we took of our Walkinshaw Street workroom last year.

I'm delighted to be able to share the official Ballast Trust history. This has been published by the Trustees to mark and celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Ballast Trust.

We are sending hard copies out in the post this week to organisations and individuals we have worked with over the last 25 years, our volunteers and other relevant organisations. But this online version also means that we can share our beautifully designed history* with other interested parties.

While December 2012 was the 25th anniversary of the official Trust deed being set up, the operations of the Ballast Trust really got going throughout 1988 when work begun on the huge job at Port Glasgow to process the Scott Lithgow records. So for this reason, throughout 2013, we'll be tweeting extracts from Bill's diaries to try and get a sense of what the Trust was doing in its first full year of operations (mainly sorting and rolling lots of plans!!).

*Our history was designed and printed by Resolve Creative.

Back in October we organised and shifted close to 10 tonnes of engineering plans. These were drawings relating to about 8 different engineering companies based in the North-East of England. They had come to the Ballast Trust along with other material for the Kincaid’s collection that had been cleared out of the premises of Clark Kincaids in the early 1990s.

Following discussions with colleagues at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, we had agreed that these items would be much better placed with them as a repository that is local to where those companies operated.

They sent up a great driver who amazingly drove all the way up from Newcastle, spent 3 hours loading plans and then drove all the way back down! You can see what they have done since with the plans (including some snazzy and essential freezing of the plans) and find out more about how they fit into their shipbuilding and engineering collections here.