Weald & Downland Living Museum hosts graduation ceremony

Held in the award-winning Downland Gridshell building, graduates were joined by family and friends as well as members of staff from the Museum and the University of York to celebrate their success.

It was also a special day for the Museum’s Head of Collections and Site Operations, Darron Carver, who graduated with an MSc in Building Conservation.

Darron comments: “Studying at the Museum over the last two years has been an incredibly informative and fun experience which culminated in a fantastic graduation ceremony in the iconic Gridshell building on Friday. I know my fellow graduates would join me in thanking Dr Anna and the team for putting such a great day together and we are all looking forward to seeing each other again at the forthcoming Alumni events.”

The Master Degree courses are managed by, Dr Anna Clement, the Museum’s MSc Programmes Manager, who commented: “I am extremely proud of this cohort of students. One of the strengths of our MSc programmes is that they allow students who have full-time employment, to study part-time in a five-day module format.

"This makes Masters education more accessible, and the Museum therefore attracts a range of students from a variety of backgrounds. It does, however, mean that most of our students balance family life with studying and working full time, which makes their achievement even more significant.”

From the inception of the Museum, lifelong learning has been one of the charities’ key aims. Over the years the Museum has accumulated both knowledge and experience in building conservation techniques, and in a broad range of materials and building types. The Museum’s collections of buildings and artefacts offer an unparalleled learning resource for all visitors but particularly for the Masters’ students who study them in depth.

The Museum offers two MSc programmes in Building Conservation and Timber Building Conservation on a part-time basis, validated by the University of York. Both programmes are taught in five-day blocks on a part-time basis with modules running from Wednesday to Sunday at scheduled times throughout the academic year.

The current MSc cohorts are almost halfway through their academic studies and will complete their programmes by the end 2025. The next intake for the Master Degrees will be September 2025 for which applications will open this Autumn.

For more information on MSc degree courses at Weald & Downland Living Museum, visit - wealddown.co.uk/courses/msc-degrees.