VISIT Historic Portsmouth photos from Strawbery Banke Archives

It’s been 40 years since Strawbery Banke Museum added new buildings to its campus, but you would never know. The new Carter Collections Center blends in with the trees and streetscape almost to the point of invisibility. The highest complement people have paid, according to project manager Rodney Rowland, is that many believe it is a restored old building, rather than an entirely original state-of-the-art environmentally-friendly structure.

Inside the new facility is a climate-controlled environment designed to conserve and protect thousands of museum objects. Items not on display in the museum’s many historic homes (dating from as early as 1695) are stored here. Opened in the summer of 2007, it is located on Washington Street, but is near the Tyco Visitor Center, the other new Strawbery Banke building opened in 2005. Although visitors will see little of the inside of the collections center, we’ve included this behind the scenes peak. Paintings are stored on sliding shelves, documents in archival boxes, domestic items, furniture and archaeological treasures on specially constructed shelves.

Need a spare vintage stove? It’s here. Or baby clothes, bonnets, grandfather clocks, children’s furniture, ceramics, an old powdered wig? Museum visitors will see changing exhibits in the new 500 square foot Rowland Gallery, named for benefactors Barbara and B. Allen Rowland.

The Carter Center itself is named for the Winthrop Carter family of Portsmouth that donated a former brick garage for collections use in 1978, but it was badly in need of repair. Sale of that building in 2006 completely offset the cost of the new structure. Strawbery Banke historians carefully combed through 50 years of donated items, removing those that did not fit the museum mission, and preserving the rest.

At long last the museum has a dedicated facility for conserving and storing precious items. As a result, more people will donate their historic items and, in turn, more visitors will see specially designed exhibits. -- JDR

STRAWBERY BANKE official web site 

Photos by J. Dennis Robinson (c) SeacoastNh.com