The Main Store at Grytviken, dating from c. 1920, was used to store spare parts, nuts, bolts, pipes and fittings for the whaling station operations. The Main Store and its contents remain largely unchanged from the mid 1960’s (when the whalers left Grytviken, expecting to return for another season of whaling.) These artefacts represent a moment frozen in time and on all sides the walls are lined with the tools and equipment of the whalers — left exactly as they were when the whalers departed for the last time.

The opening of the ground floor of the Main Store involved a collaboration between the Government of South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands and SGHT’s Museum Curator Jayne Dunn and South Georgia Director Sarah Lurcock. This project enabled SGHT to convey the historic, cultural and social context associated with the whaling era (1904 to mid-1960s) on the ground floor, while also highlighting the discovery, exploration and exploitation that took place at South Georgia. Jayne and Sarah used their expertise to create displays and interpretation for the ground floor, ready for its opening in 2023, revealing walls of shelves lined with the tools and equipment left behind by the whalers when the industry ceased to operate at Grytviken in the mid-1960s.