Award winner case studies

Lincolnshire Museum of the Year 2007 - Ayscoughfee Hall

This grand property in the centre of Spalding was rightly declared Museum of the Year at the inaugural Lincolnshire Renaissance Heritage Awards. The Hall underwent a significant refurbishment between 2003 and 2006 as much of the physical infrastructure was in a bad state of repair.

The refurbishment gave museum staff the chance to reinterpret the museum and develop displays and revisit the property’s collections. Before the refurbishment little of the museum had changed for 20 – 30 years, one of the longest serving displays being a collection of stuffed birds.

One of the priorities of the Heritage Lottery Funding was that the building be used as the main exhibit, something that the staff were keen to do as they knew how important Ayscoughfee Hall is to the local area and in general. The Hall also kept the local focus in its permanent displays which include the history of the fens, particularly the social history of the unique culture of the wetland area.


There are more plans for the development of Ayscoughfee Hall, including more links with local schools and the use of the Hall for more events and activities.

Read the full case study:
Ayscoughfee Hall museum of the year case study (30 kb)

Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum school archive project, inspiration award 2007

Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum is a small museum in Lincolnshire that wanted to work more with school groups, but could not facilitate large school visits due to the size of its premises. It is volunteer run, and not many of the volunteers had education experience, although its secretary, Jackie Goodall, had been a teacher so had understood what teachers needed.

The idea for the photographic project that could engage schools came to  Jackie whilst walking her dog. One of the museum’s strengths is its photographic collection of images from Johnny Wield a photographic pioneer who lived in what is now the Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum a century ago. Since those photos had been taken Woodhall Spa had significantly changed with many local people disappointed at the disappearance of things they felt were special. So Jackie thought it would be a good idea to photograph Woodhall Spa in 2007 to ensure that the things that make up Woodhall Spa today aren’t lost in the future, but captured to sit alongside the images of the village 100 years ago.With funding from the Lincolnshire Community Foundation, the museum challenged local school students to take new images to update the museum archive by taking photos in the local area. 132 children from five local and neighbouring primary schools were involved in a hugely successful project which won the Inspiration Award in the 2007 Lincolnshire Renaissance Heritage Awards.


Find out more about the museum on the Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum website and read the full case study below:
Woodhall Spa school archive project case study (35 kb)  

Hallaton Museum Before Beeching, best exhibition 2007

In 2007 Hallaton Museum celebrated its 30th birthday with an exhibition looking at the village before the Beeching railway cuts took its station away. The exhibition was the idea of Pauline Ingham, a railway man’s daughter who had grown up living in the village’s station cottages, where her parents still live.The exhibition was a great opportunity to capture the memories of Hallaton residents who remembered the railway and many who had worked on the railway.

It particularly focused on the people involved in railway life and used their stories alongside memorabilia from Hallaton station, local residents and borrowed from other Leicestershire museums including Snibston Discovery Park and Loughborough Steam Trust. 

The exhibition was a great success and is still available to visit in the museum during 2008.

You can find out about the museum opening times and other information on the Hallaton Village website and view a copy of the full case study below:

Hallaton Museum Before Beeching exhibition case study (31 kb)

Whitwick Historical Group - Whitwick Colliery exhibition best event 2007

2006 was the 20th anniversary of the closure of Whitwick colliery, something that still has significant resonance and pride for villagers as many of them either worked in the mine or had family and friends who did.

Whitwick Historical Group, a small but enthusiastic team, felt that the anniversary should be marked in some way, and settled on an exhibition held at a local church on 30 September and 1 October 2006. The exhibition focused on the social history of the mine including the Whitwick mine disaster of 1898 where 35 men were killed following a fire in one of the colliery’s pits. 

The exhibition brought the community together with exhibits and information provided by a host of local people and local organisations and it was a huge success with the exhibition busy throughout and positive comments from visitors including: “fascinated”; “a lovely insight into my granddad’s life”; “lovely to see old friends”.

Download a copy of the full case study below:
Whitwick history society, colliery exhbition case study (33 kb)

Old House Museum Bakewell, Museum of the Year

In 2007 staff and volunteers at Bakewell Old House Museum noted with interest the funding available for a ‘Night at the Museum’ as part of Museums and Galleries Month (MGM) in the East Midlands.

It seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, so the museum applied started organising around the 2007 MGM theme of ‘People who are we?’ which leant itself to almost anything with local connections.

The Old House is a great venue for evening events with a series of small rooms where different activities could happen. The plan was hatched to celebrate people with local connections with poetry, prose, song and feasting. Performers were recruited through museum connections and characters chosen because of their local links.

Richard Arkwright was present throughout checking that none of his workers had sloped off from any of the local mills to be at the event. Arkwright had once owned the Old House, turning it into six cottages for his workers. Nicky Crew talked about her uncle, Maurice Oldfield, a secret agent during the Second World War and later director general of MI6. Maurice was born and lived in Over Haddon, near Bakewell, and may have been the model for John le Carré’s character, M.

The Derbyshire poet laureate read some locally inspired poetry and the choir, Rough Truffles, provided the entertainment. Refreshments were provided by the volunteers and the House was packed all evening with everyone having a fabulous time.

The all round success, including good local media coverage, meant that when the chance for another Night at the Museum grant came round, the museum jumped at the chance in 2008. 

The evening was similar, poems came again from the new poet laureate, but also from two volunteers who recited poetry from innovators George Eliot and Lord Byron, both of whom have connections to Bakewell Old House. One of George Eliot’s relatives has woodwork tools on display in the buttery and Byron’s daughter, Ada Lovelace, was an early computer pioneer. She was interested in the Jacquard mechanical loom which used punched holes to guide the design (the House has a Jaquard tapestry), this was a precursor to the Babbage analytical engine, the first mechanical computer which used similar technology to calculate mathematical tables. Ada Lovelace said that the analytical machine would weave algebraic patterns like a Jacquard loom weaves flowers. Alan Turing studied Lovelace’s work before working at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, alongside a lady who later became  one of the textile volunteers at Bakewell Old House museum.

The 2008 guest of honour was the 19th Duke of Rutland ( played by a local actor) who took time away from one of his homes, Haddon Hall, to talk to people about the coming of the railway to Bakewell. The Sitwell Singers sang folk songs and madrigals and it was yet another successful evening with a friendly and fun filled atmosphere. 

Old House Museum Bakewell, best exhibition 2007

A Century of Wedding Dresses
 
Bakewell Old House won the 2007 Derbyshire Renaissance Heritage Award for best exhibition for its wedding dress display. The museum had a number of wedding dresses and textiles associated with weddings and the textile group at the museum (all volunteers) felt that these could create an interesting and eye-catching display.  Especially as 2007 was the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip.

In its collection the museum had wedding dresses from the 1840s to the 1940s which is where the ‘century’ idea came from. The idea was to show different dresses indicating how styles had changed over time, including during the Second World War. The display included wedding trousseaus and tableaux including the mother of the bride helping her daughter get ready and earlier a best friend chatting to the bride.

The dresses on show demonstrated not just different times, but different budgets and different approaches to life. An 1887 glamorous taffeta gown sits near a modest blue-grey Quaker wedding dress from 1870 - 75.  There is also a Second World War bridesmaid’s dress that is accompanied by a letter from the bride discussing how best to use their limited number of coupons.  The following year (1946) the bridesmaid became a bride in a short crepe dress and carrying a lucky horseshoe given to her by a friend.

The exhibition was extremely popular and even led visitors to donate wedding dresses that they had in cupboards and wardrobes. As a result of the success the museum staff and volunteers developed a leaflet about the exhibition which sold out and have developed a talk and tour for groups including the local Women’s Institute. A future event will also include volunteers modelling some of the dresses not on show as well as information about the dresses and their owners.

Visitors loved the exhibition, finding it exquisite and beautiful, wanting to get closer to the dresses. The volunteers enjoyed putting the exhibition on, learning both from their research and also from some of the visitors who knew about textiles.