Chartawell studies how paper, parchment and the inks written on them decay, and turns that into testing, reports and teaching that archives, libraries and museums can act on. We hold no collection of our own. Everything we publish is measured on material submitted by the institutions that care for it.
Centre report
Technical note
Centre report
Guidance
Centre reportThe practical end of our work: what to measure before you spend money, and what a result does and does not license you to conclude.
How to submit a sample Test scope and turnaround Guidance notesDatasets from closed programmes are released with the raw measurement files, not only the summary tables, so that the analysis can be re-run and disagreed with.
Released datasets Collaboration and visiting places Reports and technical notesShort courses taught in the laboratory itself, capped at twelve so that everyone handles the instruments rather than watching a demonstration.
Course calendar Bursary places Teaching at your institutionFibre furnish identification, cold and hot extraction pH, alkaline reserve, lignin spot tests, colourimetry and fold endurance. The bench that answers “what is this made of and how far has it gone” before anyone argues about treatment.
Laboratory services →
Iron gall ink corrosion, copper-containing pigments and the migration of degradation products through a leaf. Our longest-running programme, and the one where the field’s received wisdom has moved furthest in twenty years.
Research programme →
Relative humidity cycling, mould risk thresholds and what happens to a store when the plant is switched off at night to save energy. Monitoring loans, data analysis and honest reporting of the cases where nothing measurable happened.
Research programme →
Short courses, the technical note series and the release of programme data. Everything the centre learns is written up whether or not the result was the one we expected.
Courses →Sample submission, test scope, turnaround and quotations.
laboratory@chartawell.example
+44 1904 620 118 (option 1)
Programme participation, datasets, visiting places and joint funding bids.
research@chartawell.example
+44 1904 620 118 (option 2)
Course bookings, bursaries and teaching delivered at your own institution.
courses@chartawell.example
+44 1904 620 118 (option 3)
No. We analyse, test and report; treatment is carried out by the studios and conservators who hold the material. Keeping those two roles apart is the reason our reports are accepted by funders — we have nothing to sell at the other end of the result.
Six test methods are run within an ISO/IEC 17025 quality scheme: cold and hot extraction pH, alkaline reserve, fold endurance, tensile and tear, and colour measurement. Everything else — including fibre identification and accelerated ageing — is reported as a research measurement and labelled as such on the face of the report, not in a footnote.
For fibre identification, a fragment of two millimetres square taken from an existing tear is usually enough. For pH by cold extraction we need a disc of six millimetres. Where sampling is refused — which is often the correct decision — we will say what can be answered non-destructively and what genuinely cannot.
Yes, as a monitoring loan and report rather than as design consultancy. We fit loggers, hold them for a full annual cycle where possible, and report what the building actually does. We do not specify plant and we do not accept work from equipment suppliers.
The submitting institution owns its own report and may publish it. Aggregated, anonymised data from commissioned tests may enter our research programmes unless you tell us otherwise when you submit.
