Eureka Preparing First Trip For 150 years…

Eureka is preparing to go on the move for the first time in 150 years…

Neil Bollen and the Latin Verse MachineThis week, metal conservator Neil Bollen came to The Grange, Street, to view the Latin Verse Machine in situ and to start getting it ready to transport down to a temporary workshop at the University of Exeter.

Neil Bollen and the Latin Verse MachineNeil took the opportunity to secure the various mechanisms and weights against the shaking and jiggling to come for Eureka whilst tucked up in a transit van heading down the M5 across the county boundary.

Neil also took some detailed measurements of the machine’s external dimensions, since Eureka doesn’t fit through a standard doorway (perhaps this explains why the machine has never been kept in a Clark family house – since its arrival in Street in the 1850s, it has stayed instead in the Clarks shoe factory or in the museum!).

The Trust is now making arrangements with Neil to fix on a removal date, hopefully in the next week or so. It will be the first time that Eureka has left Street for probably over 150 years. When it returns, the machine will be in good working order and worthy of its status of one of the Trust’s star objects.