Announcing the new Textile Conservation Centre legacy website

Five Mile is delighted to announce the launch of the new Textile Conservation Centre website. This project is a working collaboration between the Textile Conservation Centre (TCC) and Five Mile, who were delighted to have had the opportunity to donate our time and services in support of this worthy charitable organisation, an organisation that has been supporting our conservation heritage for over 30 years.

The Charity

As a non-profit organisation the Textile Conservation Centre Foundation (TCCF) reluctantly has had to announce the closure of the internationally renowned Textile Conservation Centre at the University of Southampton.

Established in 1975 the Textile Conservation Centre (TCC) is the only centre of its kind in the UK and its work has transformed textile conservation at an international level.

The legacy of the TCC’s work is huge and its achievements in conservation research, education and practice is known throughout the world. With projects ranging from the conservation of HMS Victory’s sails, to research into the wardrobe of King Henry Vlll, the list of the Centre’s conservation and research work is endless.

As the centre prepares to close at the end of October, it is vital that its work and research is accessible for future conservators, researchers and students. To ensure that this happens a resource and reference website was proposed and we have had the pleasure to donate our time and skills to help make it happen.

The Website

The TCC’s new website will act as an online reference point for a diverse international audience. As a legacy website, Five Mile will be staying involved to make sure that the news and new content will be added to the site.

The site has been built with the open source Drupal software and the key challenge for Five Mile and the TCC was in providing the staff of the TCC with a tool through which they could collaboratively work and prepare their content and related images. By building an early version of the website in Drupal that was optimised for easy content management, Five Mile was able to work with the TCC staff without having to get in the way of the content creation process.

Five Mile wishes to thank The Textile Conservation Centre for providing us with the opportunity to work with them on this project. We wish you all the best of luck into the future as you continue to keep textile conservation alive in the UK and around the world.