Nottinghamshire Renaissance Heritage Awards 2008

The second Nottinghamshire Renaissance Heritage Awards was held at Mansfield Museum on Wednesday 23 July at a light hearted and celebratory ceremony. 
 
The awards again recognised the excellent work that museums in the county had been doing over the past year and particularly focused on the 20 museum entrants in five categories.

The winners were decided by a panel of three judges: Neville Stankley, Nottingham Trent University; Wendy Honeyman-Smith, Rural Community Action Nottinghamshire and John Holmes, BBC Radio Nottingham. The judges visited all the entrant museums and then undertook the difficult task of deciding the winners.

And the winners are ...

Best Event

The winner is

Brewhouse Yard Museum of Nottinghamshire Life for 1940s Knees Up. The event happened in May 2008 with 100 re-enactors and staff and volunteers from across Nottingham Museums and Galleries helping out.


2,693 visitors attended, twice as many as for the previous year's event and the day gave people a glimpse of British life in the wartime complete with rationing, mock air raids, vintage vehicles and people explaining what life was really like, including remembering people killed in the war.

The judges felt that the event was brilliantly conceived and organised bringing together learning and fun.

Best Exhibition

The joint winners are

Mansfield Museum for Golden Sands. The summer 2007 exhibition was a beach complete with 20 tonnes of sand, deck chairs, branded rock and a host of summer holiday memories from staff and visitors.

The exhibition focused on people's memories of previous seaside visits and used photographs and collections from the Museum as well as local people's memories and items in the exhibition. A new schools session was developed and the exhibition attracted 16,500 people in its 11 week run with many people returning again and again during the exhibition and since.

The judges were impressed by the skills of the museum staff, the partnerships, sponsorship gained, the use of community collections and canny marketing that kept attracting people back and new people to visit.

Newark Town Hall Museum for William Caparne. The exhibition was inspired by an enquiry about the museum's painting by William Caparne, a 19th century artist originally from Newark. That enquiry led museum staff and volunteers to find out more about the artist and his links with Guernsey and the United States of America.

The museum made a public appeal for information and found out much more about this little-known artist, adding to the exhibition.

The exhibition attracted 600 visitors, a record for Newark Town Hall Museum and has left a legacy of new partnerships and increased information and awareness of a local figure.
The judges loved the fact that one picture could lead to such a wonderful and well regarded exhibition and were amazed at the hard work of the staff and volunteers to find out so much and develop new links particularly with Guernsey Museum.

Inspiration Award for Best Special Project

The winner is

Nottingham City Museums and Galleries for Sankofa. This project was part of the museumaker initiative bringing together designer makers with museums and in this instance young people from the African Caribbean community in Nottingham.

The project took inspiration from Nottingham Castle's Wedgwood slavery medallion and was part of activity to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 2007.

The group of young people investigated the portrayal of black people in Nottingham museums collections, looked at the role of art in cultural change and learned more about how artists work before working together with a ceramicist to create a new piece.

The 'Globe of Freedom' was produced by the partnership, made by Wedgwood, and is now on display in Nottingham Castle.

The judges were impressed by the creativity of the project and the challenge of exploring how African Caribbean heritage is reflected in the museum. The feedback was excellent and the legacy long.

Caring for Collections

The winner is

Nottingham Museums and Galleries for Access Artefacts. The award was for the third part of the Access Artefacts project which took a collection heading for disposal and created resources and resource boxes for use by schools and community groups.


The third part of the project included a new store with easy access and full information to accompany the boxes and inform the sessions for users. Seven new resources were created and teachers have received inset training on how to use the boxes and community mentors have been recruited to take the resources to community groups.

The judges were impressed at how the collection was preserved and how staff and volunteers worked to enable others to benefit from it. The work was well researched and well used and enabled others to use it effectively.  

Museum of the Year

The winner is

Mansfield Museum for the strength and breadth of its work, engaging and involving the local people in an interesting, informative and fun site.