22nd January 2005, 01:05 PM
Pete, far from doing any work I am actually a mere and humble mature (ho ho) 2nd year archaeology student, after having spent 10 years or so as an amateur/volunteer/extramural student type bod. Before my mid-life crisis I spent 30 years designing buildings for a living, and not only have I been inside a number of distribution centres but I have designed such facilties and numerous warehouses, so I do have a vague idea of what they are and how big they can be - and how much they cost, to build and run, particularly if fully serviced (ie environmentally controlled as a depository would be).
As you may have gathered I have also been in the LAARC, which is a Very Large Warehouse. Their website (look for MOLAS or MOL) will no doubt give the floor area. They themselves told me, on a private tour of the facility, that they expect to be full in 7 years. That is just from the London area.
No, it would not take very long to fill a national depository with ceramics from the whole country, not very long at all. Perhaps someone from a medium sized unit could give us an estimate of how much material they recover every year on average, including of course non-ceramic material and the site archive, but I think you are grossly under-estimating it, Pete, from your suggestion that a van could make an annual collection round.
MP's love talking about bold statements but they don't like paying for them! Of course a national mega-centre is technically feasible, but as I have suggested, would be logistically impractical, and possibly politically undesireable - over centralization.
I'm not sure what you mean by "other disciplines" but certainly many museums are unable to accept any more. I most certainly agree that money would have been far better spent on facilities of this nature than that soppy great dome however!
As you may have gathered I have also been in the LAARC, which is a Very Large Warehouse. Their website (look for MOLAS or MOL) will no doubt give the floor area. They themselves told me, on a private tour of the facility, that they expect to be full in 7 years. That is just from the London area.
No, it would not take very long to fill a national depository with ceramics from the whole country, not very long at all. Perhaps someone from a medium sized unit could give us an estimate of how much material they recover every year on average, including of course non-ceramic material and the site archive, but I think you are grossly under-estimating it, Pete, from your suggestion that a van could make an annual collection round.
MP's love talking about bold statements but they don't like paying for them! Of course a national mega-centre is technically feasible, but as I have suggested, would be logistically impractical, and possibly politically undesireable - over centralization.
I'm not sure what you mean by "other disciplines" but certainly many museums are unable to accept any more. I most certainly agree that money would have been far better spent on facilities of this nature than that soppy great dome however!