Textile conservation centre weaves its way to Glasgow

A NEW textile conservation centre to preserve the nation's valuable cloths and fabrics is to be established at Glasgow University.

The Textile Conservation Centre Foundation and the university have agreed to found the new teaching and research facility – the only resource of its kind in the UK.

Professor Nick Pearce, director of the university's Institute for Art History, and head of the department of history of art, said: "This is a tremendous opportunity both for the university and also for the conservation profession in Scotland, the UK and internationally. Expertise, facilities and the wealth of the collections make Glasgow the ideal place for the kind of interdisciplinary research and study which the centre will promote."

The new centre will focus on conservation and the physical sciences as well as art history and textile history. It will be the first time that conservation training has been undertaken in Scotland and, combined with the university's recent developments in technical art history, the new centre is expected to have national and international impact.

Students will also have the opportunity to work with some of the best textile collections in the world held by Glasgow Museums, the National Museums of Scotland and the university's own Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery.

The first student intake is planned for September.