Heritage Rescue - Series One

We face an interesting challenge here. The batch has been set up as a snapshot in time, and if we plan to do any changes, do we follow that same principle, or do we go for something quite different?

– Presenter Brigid Gallagher describes the Rangitoto bach, early in episode four

Every week, my heritage rescue team will tackle one site in need of help. We'll spend five days getting them organised and creating new exhibits.

– Presenter Brigid Gallagher introduces the episodes

It's been a fantastic few days . . . I believe that what we've achieved is going to tell the story of Cromwell a lot better, because this is a tremendous community.

– Volunteer Edith McKay, in a speech at the relaunch of Cromwell Museum, late in episode one

...you've got bones in the same case as a taiaha... taiaha alone have their own mana, and that mana needs to be protected whether the taiaha is being used or not.

– Local iwi representative Te Aturangi Stewart on a display case at Mokau museum, in episode two

New Zealand has more than 600 museums and heritage sites. From large, impressive institutions to small. humble, out of the way places, manned by volunteers and fighting for survival.

– Presenter Brigid Gallagher introduces season one

My overall impression in this display area is that first of all I think that there's probably too much light and UV lux levels are too high, and what that causes is considerable fading for materials.

– Expert Conservation expert Rose Evans on the Thames Museum, in episode six

To see renewed energy within committees and volunteers, and to see relationships being built between them, their heritage and the local communities, is the biggest rescue of all.

– Presenter Brigid Gallagher sums up season one, late in episode eight

It's the best thing that's happened to Cromwell Museum.

– Cromwell Museum's Edith McKay on the work of the Heritage Rescue team, in episode eight

My interest in the natural world and its applicability came from my studies in geomorphology and from the opportunities to work on Māori prehistory — that and a fascination with the evidence that results from mixing two cultures. Māori have this concept of ‘mauri’, the energy, or life force, that binds all things in the physical world. As an archaeological conservator, this is something I can identify with.

– Presenter Brigid Gallagher, in NZ Geographic 109, May 2011

...it appears that New Zealand is full of enthusiastic amateurs who have made it their business to hang on to the relics of the past and put them on display in small museums up and down the country. But, as archaeologist and conservator Brigid Gallagher reveals in this series, that's often where problems begin. So do these little museums start off as hobby collections and then just get out of control?

– TV Guide writer Keith Sharp, 29 July 2016

...the visit to the Cromwell Museum in Central Otago revealed artefacts that tell of daring gold robberies, gold claims worked by Chinese miners using opium at night to ward off the cold, and a strange object sitting on top of a submerged bridge under Lake Dunstan.

– Writer Keith Sharp describes the first episode of Heritage Rescue, TV Guide, 29 July 2016