13. A year in the life of Elizabeth Gaskell's House - elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk

13. A year in the life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House

Posted
10th January 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, blogsNnews, Gaskell House Blogs

6-10 January 2025

Monday I was off (after working on Sunday) but the rest of the staff team were in the House along with some of the volunteers working on book cataloguing and accessioning (we’ve had some exciting new book donations) and the planning for the 10-year anniversary party in Feb. I’m really looking forward to this and the team have come up with some great ideas on a very small budget.

The wedding enquiries keep coming in (Christmas and New Year being peak wedding proposal season) keeping Lucy and Ellie very busy; as have the private tour bookings which have been incredibly popular. On a less exciting note Katy had a new PC installed, which not unexpectedly took much longer than we all expected, but she finally has a PC running at normal speed as opposed to super slow.

Tuesday was an admin day for me working on a board report for next week’s trading company meeting, proofing a blog, updating fire evacuation procedures, sorting through invoices for payment and credit card receipts and finishing off Dec income reports. Not terribly exciting but all important stuff. I also received a very sad email from a fellow literary House about the death of Kirsty Archer Thompson (the Collections and Interpretation Manager at The Abbotsford Trust) from cancer at the age of just 37. Kirsty had made an extraordinary contribution to the Trust’s charitable work and the advancement of Walter Scott studies.

We were open on Wednesday and Thursday, but it was very quiet visitor-wise, not helped in the slightest by the fresh snow and ice (which wasn’t that bad in Manchester but obviously was putting people off venturing out). It didn’t stop us from taking more snowy photos and videos.

Only two of the gardening volunteers made it in (and who can blame them), but Chris also took some atmospheric photos of the frosty garden to add to our collection. The Tea Room cake delivery came, more grit was ordered for the paths and we all enjoyed eating Lucy’s homemade banana bread -so not a bad start to the day.

After the morning briefing, Katy and I met with Tina from Pinc College about setting up a new placement with a student from the college and I gave her a quick tour of the House. I caught up with Jane B, one of our Trustees and regular volunteer, on a few things as well as on the progress of the decoration folder she’s putting together for our records and stores. The folder will provide detailed information and samples of all the fabric and wallpaper used in the House restoration (and since then), which we hope will help colleagues of the future when they come to do repairs or replace items. Coincidentally, I also placed an order with Little Greene this week for paint for the doors in the basement so that they can be repainted at some point in the next few months.

The end of Wednesday unfortunately finished with a broken lamp (thankfully it wasn’t Victorian or expensive) and the decision that we are not going to have a permanent lamp on the piano anymore (it has been knocked off accidentally too many times). Which leads me nicely onto Thursday morning, when the Broadwood piano we have on loan had its annual tuning so that it’s all in good working order for the year ahead. Jane M and I spent some time on Thursday picking out the books, from the study and attic stores, that we will be offering for sponsorship as part of our annual book repair programme (to be announced in February). It was good to get the books selected and Jane will now put some notes together for us about the significance of the books and what repairs they require.

Later in the day Alex, our Chair, and I had a catch-up ahead of the upcoming Board meeting. And later still, I chatted to Katy about the results of our volunteer survey and the report that’s she’s writing for the Board meeting and the volunteers. There’s lots of good ideas and we now have the difficult job of putting them into a plan.

Friday was more admin for me, finishing off reports and dealing with more invoices (including our annual contract for the boiler which keeps us toasty warm in the House). The Room Hires working group also met via Zoom at lunchtime and we discussed a plan of action for this area of the business. In the House there was a wedding show-round and a final details meeting for our first wedding of 2025. And because it is one of the peak times for wedding enquiries and booking, Lucy shared her first blog looking at the wedding highlights of 2024, with others following over the coming weeks.

Ellie sent me a reel she created for social media to promote the booksale which made me laugh (a lot)- I hope you like it too!

My final job for the week (saving the best till last) will be looking through the applications for our Writers Residency, which is being organised via the Writing Squad ahead of our meeting next week.

Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd