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The care of historic interiors in the U.K. and abroad has evolved over many centuries, from historic housekeeping documented in early manuscripts, to preventive conservation, collections care and management widely practised in museums today. This paper takes a long view of this evolution, considering the causes and instigators of change in approaches taken by public institutions and private owners of historic collections. The influence of increasing professionalisation of the heritage sector and of statutory concern for the care of items of national interest is reviewed, and practice compared in the private and public spheres, to consider the future for conservation housekeeping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a pioneering in situ study of the daylight characteristics of a historic house interior. A combination of lux measurements inside and outside a historic showroom and recording of sunshine hours have been used together with a log of the room blind operation to understand the daylight characteristics of the room under different weather conditions, blinds settings and season. Average lux, daily lux hour dose, time below 30 lux and daylight factor metrics have been derived to assess daylight conditions over a 10-month period for both conservation of light-sensitive collections and the viewing experience of visitors. Recommendations are made on how to improve daylight management for conservation and visitor experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Control of relative humidity (RH) for collections care is challenging in U.K. historic houses because they are often highly ventilated with poor heat retention, a porous building fabric and naturally tend to high (60-80%) RH if unheated. The significance of the building means that large-scale modifications and installation of air handling systems may be unfeasible and undesirable for the conservation of the building. In the late 1980s the National Trust, for English, Wales and Northern Ireland, investigated conservation heating as an RH control method that works with the natural environment of historic buildings, mimicking historic heating and requiring only modification of existing heating services or a light touch installation of new heating systems. The National Trust adopted conservation heating as its preferred method for environmental control in historic buildings from the 1990s. This method was presented at the IIC 1994 Ottawa congress on preventive conservation. Conservation heating has since been adopted by many historic house management organisations, particularly across north-west Europe, where it is well suited to the climate. This paper reviews conservation heating developments implemented by the National Trust since 1994, in response to a changing external context, new knowledge and developments in operational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]