Winchester Receives Grant for Feasibility Study

The Town of Winchester has received a Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Grant of $35,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The grant will be used to plan a storage facility for historical collections in the basement of the . Town records, Historical Society artifacts, and the manuscripts and photographs currently in the Archival Center at Town Hall could be moved to this archival center.

The grant allows the town to conduct a feasibility study on the property to see if the basement of the Sanborn House would be a good fit for the town’s archives.

“This would allow for the major archives of the town to come to the Sanborn House and other town resources,” said Executive Director of the , Rebekah Beaulieu. “The house could also become an educational center.”

According to a press release from the town, the grant till fund a team of experts in the fields of conservation, architecture, archives and engineering who will evaluate current environmental conditions in the Sanborn House, review the building and see if it would be a proper storage environment.

“This goes along with the town and the mission of the society to become a historical center for the town,” Beaulieu said. “The house has a climate-controlled basement with its own entrance. This has always been the goal for the house.”

When the feasibility is completed, the town will have designs and specifications submitted.

This is the second time the NEH has given funds to Winchester, according to the release. In 2005, the town and the historical society received funds from NEH to conduct a preservation-needs assessment.

“Receiving one national grant is an honor, but for a town to receive a second is extraordinary,” said Acting Town Manager Mary Ellen Lannon. “We are fortunate to have the historical society as our partner in the effort to collect, preserve and make available the historical records of our town.”