Book Description
INTRODUCTION
Overview of the chapters that follow
INTER-WAR PLANS
Provisions made for safety of the treasures in WW1 (use of uncompleted GPO underground railway stations, Aldwych tube, South Kensington subway, cellars of museums and galleries etc).
Plans prepared in 1934 to evacuate London completely as it was felt to be too vulnerable to German bombers. At first large country houses in Wales and the provinces considered safe enough.
Tube tunnels earmarked for use in WW2 but plans are thrown into disarray following altercations between the Treasury, the Museums and the War Office who are already squatting in Brompton Road station.
Treasury absolutely opposed to underground repositories but is manoeuvred into financing a tunnel system in the grounds of the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth for the safe-keeping of the Welsh National treasures. This development , eventually, is used by the London museums as a lever to force the Treasury to finance their own underground stores.
THE COUNTRY HOUSE REPOSITORIES
The National Register of country houses suitable for use as arts repositories is secretly prepared in 1934. As news leaks out, owners of lesser houses flood the authorities with offers of their own properties in order to safeguard themselves from having working-class evacuee children billeted upon them in wartime. This becomes a major national scandal.
1939 - houses are occupied by the museums and galleries but within months the situation becomes untenable. Conditions in most are dreadful; the owners, who initially offered their properties free of charge as an act of patriotism begin a concerted campaign to demand rent from the authorities and become generally fractious.
By mid-1940 other problems develop: the fall of France leaves Germany in control of airfields in northern France and thus able to range freely over the whole of Britain. All the country houses are suddenly vulnerable. Also, the government perceives an immediate risk to the collections housed in properties in Wales to the depredations of Welsh and Irish Nationalist terrorist gangs.
THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Heavy Egyptian and Assyrian statuary, the Elgin Marbles, etc, are transported on the eve of war (by means of a scheduled ballast train from the LPTB Lillie Bridge depot) to the Aldwych tube. Other material is evacuated to Boughton House and Drayton House in Northamptonshire.
Both houses are soon declared too vulnerable, and there is trouble brewing about the use of Aldwych as a repository for ‘elitist trifles’ when it could be better used as a public air raid shelter.
Pressure builds for the development of an underground bolt-hole, and eventually, after other more unsuitable sites are investigated, Westwood Quarry is located and accepted.
VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM
At the outbreak of war some artefacts are removed to a purpose-built basement bunker in Kensington but the majority of the museums contents are removed to Montacute House in Somerset.
Something of a scandal regarding ‘Brats from Bristol’.
Montacute becomes untenable so an underground repository is sought.
WESTWOOD QUARRY
Pressure from Churchill, Beaverbrook and others forces the Treasury into developing Westwood Quarry near Bradford on Avon as a joint repository for the V&A and the British Museum.
Most of the quarry is already in use as an underground factory, and the first part of this chapter gives an overview of this development and the Corsham underground factory project as a whole.
The chapter deals with the construction of the repository, the transfer of billions of pounds worth of artefacts into the subterranean vault, and the difficult job of maintaining adequate environmental conditions underground.
Another minor scandal: the authorities are misled over the condition of a standby generator acquired for the museum repository. This machine explodes on the first occasion that it is run.
Inadequacies of the air-conditioning plant exposed.
NATIONAL GALLERY
Pictures first evacuated to houses in Gloucestershire and North Wales, the majority going to Penrhyn Castle.
Lord Penrhyn becomes most obstructive… National Gallery staff at the castle describe him as a ‘drunken philistine’. His obstructiveness, coupled with the actions of the Welsh Nationalists and the vulnerability of the castle following the fall of France (the huge expanse of roof on Penrhyn Castle is used by German pilots as a beacon while navigating to bomb the docks at Liverpool) makes the development of a more secure underground repository inevitable.
Manod slate quarry is found, and plans are laid for its development.
Harsh conditions, its remote location and terrible weather retard development.
The job is eventually finished, but problems arise with the transfer of the paintings. ‘King Charles 1st on Horseback’ (the largest picture in the NG collection) will not pass under the Ffestiniog railway bridge.
TATE, WALLACE AND THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
Mainly evacuated to country houses in Cumberland, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, including ‘Hellens" the home of the formidable Lady Helena Gleichen (grand niece of Queen Victoria), and Eastington Hall in Worcestershire, the property of the scandalous Mademoiselle Montegeon.
The Wallace Collection is evacuated to Balls Park and Hall Barn in a fleet of coal lorries.
PROVINCIAL GALLERIES AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL TREASURES
This chapter deals with the use of Shepton Mallet Prison in Somerset as the secret hideaway for the most iconic artefacts from the Public Records Office (including Domesday Book, King Charles’ Death Warrant, and Chamberlain’s pathetic ‘Peace in Our Time’ slip of paper).
CONCLUSION – WW3
The return to London in 1945, and plans prepared for WW3
Sir William Akers, Britain’s foremost expert in nuclear matters, declares Manod Quarry the ideal radiation-proof store for use in an atomic war.
London Tube tunnels are also considered as atom-bomb-proof repositories, but most are already earmarked for the Home Office. The tube flood-gate plan is also discussed.
New generators, etc, are installed in Westwood and Manod in the 1960’s, and evacuation exercises are conducted by the National Galleries in 1958, 1963 and 1978. (‘Operation Methodical’ the last cold-war arts evacuation plan).
Illustrated with approximately 80 photographs and five plans
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