Herbert Read Archive - Easter 2019 The Arts Society Sidmouth (then SIDDFAS) cleaned and catalogued the is the cleaning Herbert Read papers and architectural drawings which are held at the Devon Record Office at Sowton in Exeter. Herbert Read was a prominent local architect, especially known for ecclesiastical work including tthe restoratipn of Exeter Cathedral after the bombing in WW2.

Three Sidmouth volunteers worked at The Heritage Centre in Sowton  immediately after Easter 2019. They attended the Centre, met the curator and been given an overview of the work which included the cleaning and preserving of architectural drawings and correspondence from suppliers and clients  to  the firm.

A further two volunteers from The  Arts Society Honiton visited during the first two weeks of May and between the five volunteers organised themselves into teams to pick up and continue the on-going work of preserving this important Exeter archive.

Library Conservation - Two teams of  Volunteers did a major project of conservation of the library at Sidbury Manor. Books, many of them two hundred years old, were cleaned, repaired and recorded on a database. The project took several years and was completed in 2018.

Parks and Gardens - A group of volunteers are recording the parks and open spaces of Sidmouth for the UK Parks and Gardens database. Starting with the gardens at The Knowle and Tony Dustan-Smith's stunning photographs which can be seen on the UK Parks and Gardens website, along with Peter Whitfield's research into the history of the gardens.

The Arts Society Sidmouth (then SIDDFAS) were the first organisation to complete one of these new NADFAS projects, and Parks and Gardens want to use this as a model for such projects. This was followed up by recording Blackmore Gardens. 

As a result of this work, The Arts Society Sidmouth has picked up the first Parks and Gardens gold award, which was presented by Judith al-Saffar, National co-ordinator, to Jill Glazier, our chair, and Deirdre Hounsom our outreach coordinator..

An Illustrated Record of Cadhay House, near Exeter - Our volunteers cleaned, numbered, conserved and recorded a social commentary on a previously unknown collection of articles and costumes belonging to five consecutive generations of the owner’s family.