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Urgent donations are needed to help care for and better understand the more than 1,000,000 historic artefacts in our care. So today, we launch the Million and More Appeal.

• Our Million and More Appeal calls for donations to care for more than 1,000,000 historic objects
• Research could uncover England's last wolf, map Roman trade routes and reveal secrets about the great artists

Rising costs and pressures on funding have put a strain our ability to maintain and research this invaluable and internationally significant historic collection, and we are now calling on the public to support our vital work.

From a prehistoric stone 'core' from Stonehenge, a Roman baby bottle, a 9th-century grave marker, a cannon gifted to the 11-year-old Elizabeth I, to the Duke of Wellington's false teeth and Queen Victoria's stockings, English Heritage has one of the largest and most varied collections of historic objects in the country.

Spanning thousands of years from prehistory to the Cold War, the mammoth collection is also spread across the nation; whether housed in one of the charity's storage facilities, or on display to the public in its hundreds of museums or historic sites.

But costs are growing. Each year, we spend at least £600,000 simply to care for and store this huge number of historic objects.

This doesn't leave much in the way of additional funds, be that for objects which urgently need extra care or for vital research projects which could shape our collective understanding of England's history.

For example, of the thousands of unassuming animal bones in the collection, some being worked on now could hold the key to identifying the country's last known wolf; 7,000 Roman glass shards need examining and cataloguing to build a map of the empire's trade routes; and many paintings, by artists such as Titian and Reynolds, could benefit from infra-red and x-ray scanning to reveal their methods and techniques.

Kevin Booth, English Heritage's Head Collections Curator, said, 'It is near impossible to imagine a million of anything, it's such a gargantuan number – but at English Heritage, when we took on the 400 historic buildings in our care, a million and more historic artefacts came with them. That is our reality.

'As the guardians of England's heritage, we take our job of looking after these objects very seriously as not only are they priceless, they're also an irreplaceable portal to the past.

'From storage to caring for, cataloguing, discovering, acquiring or putting on display, it's a huge and expensive undertaking, and we need the public's help.

'Today, we are launching our Million and More Appeal and asking for urgent donations to allow us to continue caring for the jewels in the crown of England's history and ensuring that we can unlock their stories long into the future.

'English Heritage is a charity, and every penny donated will go into looking after our collections – from fragments of pottery to the finest art. We're relying on your support.'

English Heritage cares for more than a million historic objects across the country. Here are its collections at a glance:

• Over 60,000 coins
• Over 27,000 books
• Over 15,000 animal remains
• Over 8,000 photographs
• Over 1,500 fragments of wallpaper
• Over 1,400 paintings
• Over 1,400 statues and sculptures
• Over 1,000 curtains
• Over 700 chairs
• Almost 300 dessert plates
• Over 200 beds
• Over 120 gas masks
• Approximately 40 gargoyles
• Over 30 dolls
• 20 pairs of spectacles

Three Research Projects

Hunting England's Last Wolf: The bones of a large canine, originally buried at Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire in the 1500s, are currently held in English Heritage's archaeological stores.

Ideas around the extinction of the wolf draw on the historical record, but what has not been studied is the physical record as found in archaeological collections across the country. Jessica Peto, of the University of Exeter, is locating all potential wolf specimens in archaeological collections, applying new ID techniques and trying to build a picture of the wolf's timeline. Could this canine in the stores be England's last wolf?

Roman Glass Shards: Excavations have been taking place at Corbridge Roman Town on Hadrian's Wall since 1906. During these excavations, 56 acres of the Roman site have been uncovered, alongside thousands of artefacts.

Of these objects, glass is an important material used throughout the whole of the period of Roman Britain, so changes in forms, patterns and supplies can tell us about many aspects of life from eating and drinking practices, to supply routes, and fashion choices.

Currently there are almost 7,000 glass shards from Corbridge which need to be identified, catalogued, photographed, and weighed to give us a fuller picture of Roman life at the town.

Revealing Renaissance Underdrawings: Renaissance painters usually drew out their compositions in black chalk or ink on a smooth white gesso panel.

This design guided the build-up of paint layers – from opaque underlayers to transparent glazes. Often invisible to the naked eye, these underdrawings can often be fully revealed using an Infra-Red camera.

Renaissance paintings at Ranger's House in London would make a perfect collection to study and might yield exciting results with the use of this technology.

English Heritage became an independent charity in 2015 and now relies more and more on the generosity of its members, visitors, and each property's local community to support its work.

'Million and More' Appeal:

• £35 can pay for 1 hour of an expert's time, so they can catalogue some of our important collections
• £60 can pay for five soft brushes to prevent scratches while cleaning fragile works of art and historic photographs
• £80 can help pay for the costs of opening up our stores for free public tours, so more people can discover a treasure trove of historical items and hear their stories

To support the appeal, visit www.english-heritage.org.uk/millionandmore