Wedding dress from Berry to get a new lease on life, almost 150 years after going down the aisle

Berry and District Historical Society is doing just that, calling in an expert to conserve the oldest gown in its collection.

It is a challenging task which object conservator Tess Evans relishes. She will spend many hours painstakingly preserving the wedding dress which once belonged to prominent Berry resident Mrs Robina Wilson.

Each layer of material will be carefully cleaned, every seam inspected, and the entire garment stabilised with some special tricks of the trade. Finally, it will go on a custom mannequin, made to fit the dress and best support the delicate fabric and threads.

While conserving old silk can be a challenge, Ms Evans said there is an advantage to working with a wedding gown.

"Pieces like this are generally well kept, because people really want to look after their wedding dresses," she said.

"I also see a lot of embroidery samplers around this sort of age... they're usually quite revered and well looked after."

The dress' original owner, Mrs Robina Wilson, was the wife of Berry's first Mayor James Wilson.

Robina Tait married James Wilson on April 27, 1875, at St James Church of England in Sydney. The couple returned to their home town of Broughton Creek, which was later renamed to Berry.

Mrs Wilson's green silk dress may be considered unconventional by today's traditions, but a colourful dress was still rather common for the era. It found its way to the Berry Museum in a round-about fashion.

After being passed down to Wilson descendants for just over a century, the dress was eventually donated to the Nowra Museum in 1977, by a Mrs G. Wilson of Shoalhaven Heads. Mrs Wilson's dress stayed stored in Nowra for a long time, before it was gifted to the Berry Museum in 2009.

It stayed in storage for some time, but now, with the help of a cultural heritage grant, the historical society is finally able to bring it out into the light.

The garment isn't the only wedding dress in the Berry Museum's collection, however, and there are already plans to give it pride of place in a special exhibition once the conservation work is complete.

Sandra Berner of the Berry and District Historical Society said the team of volunteers is working on a full display of local wedding items.

"We must have about six or seven wedding dresses, so we plan to change the current dress exhibition hopefully by the end of this year," she said.

"Mrs Wilson's dress will take pride of place... the display is currently about women and children of the Berry district, but we thought we'd have wedding dresses and trousseaus - all that really nice sort of stuff."