Rochdale Pioneers Museum preventative measures to protect artefacts

The Rochdale Pioneers Museum teams up with CAFOD to protect its textile collections from moths

The Rochdale Pioneers Museum, on Toad Lane, has take action to stop textile attacking moths by putting in place preventative measures to protect its artefacts.

The gallery has purchased 20 bird or bat boxes (B.O.B.) from CAFOD, which offers the boxes to raise money for its life-saving work overseas.

The museum hopes the B.O.B. boxes, which are dual-purpose bird-nesting or bat roosting boxes, will encourage more bats to the conservation area the museum is based in to eat any excess moths, reducing the need for pesticides which can cause harm to other insects such as bees.

Liz McIvor, Manager of the Co-operative Heritage Trust, which runs Rochdale Pioneers Museum, said: “The explosion of moth populations has had a detrimental effect on the heritage industry recently. The B.O.B box is a great idea, and it is brilliant to be using it to help our environment in a conservation area, our collections and CAFOD’s work at the same time.

“While our collections aren’t primarily textile based, it is still important to protect the textiles we do have, particularly social and political textiles such as campaign banners, which moths just love.”

The launch of B.O.B. boxes within the museum coincides with a special bat-themed event during Rochdale Literary Festival where visitors can have a go at building a box themselves.