Saving Shackleton Heritage: Our Exciting Work on the Manager’s Villa

In one of the former whaling stations on South Georgia, work has now been successfully completed to save one of the most globally important pieces of heritage relating to the survival of crew of the Endurance and Sir Ernest Shackleton – the original Stromness Manager’s Villa. This culturally significant building is where Sir Ernest Shackleton, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean sought help on 20 May 1916, after their epic journey crossing the island, following the sinking two years earlier of their ship the Endurance in Antarctica.

This work was funded and undertaken by South Georgia Heritage Trust and Friends of South Georgia Island with permission from the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

Our Saving Shackleton Heritage team spent four months at Stromness undertaking the painstaking work to save this incredibly dilapidated building. This process started with preparing the area and making the work site safe. A team of professionals then carefully removed asbestos-containing materials from the Villa, allowing the skilled team of builders and carpenters to undertake the detailed structural work to stabilise the building – saving it for future generations.

With the physical stabilisation complete, the project now moves into its next exciting phase. Our team of digital specialists have been using photogrammetry, LiDAR scanning and drone imagery to create a high-resolution 3D digital replica of the Villa. This virtual model will then allow people anywhere in the world to explore this historic building inside and out and experience one of the many key moments from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

This digital version will focus on how the Villa would have appeared in 1916, the year that Shackleton and his men arrived seeking rescue. We will be sharing more of this wonderful conservation story in the months to come, along with the results of the digital work, so watch this space for the next chapter of the story. You can follow SGHT and FOSGI on social media and visit our websites, sght.org or fosgi.org, to support our ongoing work.