Collections Assistant

Job description

Our friendly team of Collections Assistants care for the collection to its full potential, ensuring excellent presentation to visitors each and every day. We are looking to expand our visitor offer within the house and the successful candidates will help us to achieve this goal.

• Dunham Massey cares for one of the largest and most diverse Collections in the National Trust; you can be part of caring for this piece of history
• Work as part of the team to get the house ready to open for visitors each day, balanced with behind-the-scenes work to improve stored collections
• A great property to develop your career in Collections and heritage, working with passionate, enthusiastic and like-minded people.

This is a permanent role. It’s a full time opportunity, meaning you will work 5 days per week. This will include some weekend working on a rotational basis, alongside all members of the Collections team.

Please include your CV with your application and a short note telling us where you existing skills may either be able to move across to these roles or expanding on your current experience of these roles.

Provisional interview date for this role is Thursday 12 of May.

Upon successful recruitment into these advertised roles, the Collections and House Team at Dunham Massey will comprise 6 Collections Assistants, a Collections & House Officer, Collections & House Manager and a Property Curator. Our friendly team of Collections Assistants care for the collection to its full potential, ensuring excellent presentation to visitors each and every day. We are looking to expand our visitor offer within the house and the successful candidates will help us to achieve this goal.

Dunham Massey Hall sits within a magnificent 300 acre deer park alongside one of Britain’s finest winter gardens. The estate itself extends over 3000 acres and the site itself attracts over 500,000 visitors a year. The house, garden and parkland hide many layers of history and have many stories to tell. Do you want to be part of sharing Dunham’s unique history?

Dunham Massey is approximately 10 miles south of central Manchester and three miles south of Altrincham. Roger Grey, 10th Earl of Stamford, gave it to the National Trust in 1976 and today it attracts over 500,000 visitors a year. This elegant Georgian mansion, set within a magnificent 300 acre deer park and including one of Britain’s finest winter gardens, is a very popular visitor attraction with over 100 staff. The busy team has a strong commercial focus and a fast-paced environment. Within the park walls there is also a shop, café, restaurant and ice cream parlour. On the wider estate, there are 20 farms, 100 cottages, a golf course and an award winning housing development. The house, garden and parkland hide many layers of history and have many stories to tell.

Click here for more information about this location

As a Collections Assistant, you’ll be working with a great housekeeping team in an incredible place, helping with the day-to-day cleaning and care of the collections. No detail will go unnoticed, and you’ll keep a keen eye on everything from the environmental conditions in a room, to signs of wear and tear.

Away from the day-to-day presentation of the house, the Collections team are currently focusing on the stored collections, tackling deep cleans and helping to improve the backlog of collections management work. This will also involve working alongside and supervising volunteers to support this work.

As a full-time member of the team, you will support the day-to-day operations of an open house, including supervision of a team of room guide and welcome host volunteers.

Please also read the full role profile, attached to this advert.

This is a permanent role. It’s a full time opportunity, meaning you will work 5 days per week. This will include some weekend working on a rotational basis, alongside all members of the Collections team.

Working patterns will be discussed at interview,

Provisional interview date for this role is Thursday 12 of May.

We also have two part-time opportunities (IRC120588 and a full time fixed term (12 month duration) opportunity available (IRC120586)Please see these opportunities as well if you think one of those may suit you better

We’d love to hear from you if you have;

• A keen interest in history, historic properties and conservation of their collections

• A good understanding of preventive conservation

• Knowledge of the approach required when working with fragile historic collections as well as Health & Safety and emergency procedures

• Good manual dexterity and eye-to-hand skills and ability to work from ladders and tower scaffold

• The ability to support volunteers to perform at their best

• Good interpersonal and communication skills, and are a great team player

• A willingness to undertake continuing professional development and personal skills development and have an enthusiasm to learn

The National Trust has the motto ‘For everyone, for ever’ at its heart. We’re working hard to create an inclusive culture, where everyone feels they belong. It’s important that our people reflect and represent the diversity of the communities and audiences we serve. We welcome and value difference, so when we say we’re for everyone, we want everyone to be welcome in our teams too.

Wherever you’re from, and whatever your background, we want to hear from you – and it doesn’t matter if you’re jam first, cream first, or even if you don’t like scones at all. Everyone is welcome.

Benefits for working at the National Trust include:

• Flexible working whenever possible

• Free parking at most locations

• Free entry to our properties for you, a guest and your children (under 18)

• Substantial pension scheme of up to 10% basic salary

Click here to find out more about the benefits we offer to support you.