Exciting Winding House updates

You might notice some big changes at the Winding House, starting with a new roof for the winding room! But there’s been lot’s going on behind the scenes too, making sure the objects we care for are carefully preserved and shared.

Check out our news bulletin below for what we’ve been up to and for some big thank you’s to all our kind supporters and funders.

Firstly, our fantastic new website!

Thanks to Art Fund, we’ve been able to showcase our services through this new website, for which we need to say a huge thank you! Our new site promotes COVID-19 safe practices through increasing accessibility to our collection online, complies with all relevant requirements and lets us show you everything the Winding House has to offer. We can’t wait to make the most of it with details of all the great opportunities available.

Restoration of the Winding Engine

We were lucky enough to have funding through the Local Authority Cultural Service Fund from Welsh Government, with which we lovingly restored one cylinder of our Victorian winding engine. Tim and the team from Context Engineering Ltd spent a week repairing, maintaining and painting the cylinder, after water-damage during lockdown caused a big rust problem. Check out the results, we think it looks great!

Getting Ready for Visitors

We owe a big thank you to the Welsh Government for their support through the Cultural Resilience Fund, which has supplied us with everything we need to keep you safe on your visit, including hand sanitising equipment and screens. So you can visit us with confidence.

Transforming our Collections

We’re very excited to announce that we’re transforming the way we care for our collections at the Winding House. With huge thanks to the Welsh Government for funding through the Transformation Capital Grant, we’ll be making sure that we preserve our winding engine and collections of objects in the best possible conditions, to protect them for you for years to come. You might notice some big changes at the Winding House, starting with a new roof for the winding room! But there’s been lot’s going on behind the scenes too, making sure the objects we care for are carefully preserved and shared.

Penallta Lodge Banner is Back

Eagle-eyed visitors to the Winding House will have noticed one of our favourite objects was missing from its usual place. The National Union of Miners Penallta Lodge Banner from the 1984/85 strike went all the way to Exeter for some much-needed TLC from fabulous conservator Morwena Stephens. And the banner had another outing to the NUM Gala! Thanks to financial support from the Welsh Museums Federation, it’s back and looking better than ever. Why not visit to see it back on display in the Winding House?

Amgueddfa Cymru Producers Exhibit at the Winding House

We had a great time working with some of Amgueddfa Cymru’s producer network between 2021 and 2022. Three artistic producers. Three exhibitions in our East Gallery. Loads of amazing work by emerging young Welsh artists. A massive thank you to Ffion Denman: The Post-Industrial North and South, Annie Fenton: Social Fabric and Hannah Newell: Around the World in 80 Paintings. Keep an eye out for future work by these artists, we’ve got a feeling there’s great things ahead!