Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery has lowered one of its most popular exhibits, a Spitfire LA198, to the ground on Armistice Day, for once-in-a-decade conservation checks.
Pictured Conservator Chas Cooper inspects the propeller of the Spitfire LA198.
The spitfire has been on display, hanging above the popular Life Gallery in the museum’s West Court, since Kelvingrove opened after significant refurbishment in July 2006.
The museum is taking advantage of this opportunity to undertake the first major redesign of this area since it reopened to the public ten years ago.
The redisplay will see intriguing new specimens from the Natural History and World Cultures collections go on display. These include a wandering albatross and a leopard, donated to the city from Glasgow Zoo, previously stored in the deep freeze at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre.
Once on the ground museum bosses are keen to encourage visitors to watch the work being undertaken and view the spitfire in the rather unusual position of being on the ground, rather than in the air. The maintenance and conservation checks will necessitate the spitfire being temporarily off display for around six weeks from late October 2015, although the public can see it from the West Balcony during most of the redisplay work.
Chair of Glasgow Life, Councillor Archie Graham, said: “The spitfire is one of the most popular objects on display in Kelvingrove. It consistently ranks highly on the must-see list of many of the million-plus people who visit the museum every year.
“Those visiting in the coming weeks will have the unusual opportunity to look down upon, rather than gaze upwards at, this historically important and striking aircraft while we complete some essential conservation checks.
“Once the spitfire is raised back into its normal position we can complete the first stage of the Life Gallery resign, which is one of the largest display changes at Kelvingrove since the building re-opened in 2006. We are delighted to be able to show more of the city’s natural history collection and enable the many people who visit Kelvingrove every year to see and learn more about some incredible animals.”
Charlie Latham, Project Manager, Allelys Group, who undertook the lowering of the spitfire said: “It’s been a privilege to work with the museum on lowering the spitfire to the ground for checks. Our work often involves delicate objects, which brings an added pressure to the role, but it’s been great to be in such a stunning location, working on such an important object. And with today being Armistice Day it brings an added dimension to the job.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here