Category: Press Releases

HALESWORTH’S MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPHER UNCLOAKED

The Museum Talks series, organized by the Halesworth and District Museum, got off to a great start in the Spring, drawing enthusiastic audiences. And now, already, it’s time to think about the Autumn talks.

The first will be given at the United Reformed Church on Thursday 26 September. Vic Gray, the Museum’s publicity officer will be showing a selection of photographs by the town’s forgotten Victorian photographer, Fred Johnson. He has just been rediscovered through the generous help of Mrs Ivy Limmer, formerly of Quay Street and now of Beccles. Mrs Limmer is the owner of a fine Victorian album of photographs of the town and surrounding area which had been lost from view since the man who compiled it left the town over a hundred years ago. The talk will describe how the Museum has tracked down the name of the photographer and the details of his life, as well as showing a selection of images from the album.

The best of the Halesworth photographs are now to be made available in a book, ‘Fred Johnson’s Halesworth: Images of a Suffolk Market Town’ which will be launched at the talk and will then be available from the Museum and from the Halesworth Book Shop.

Make a note too of the second date, Thursday 31 October when local archaeologist, Gilbert Burroughes, will speak on ‘Knowledge from the Ground: Our Blyth Valley Ancestors Revealed’.

Vic Gray’s talk, “Rediscovering Fred Johnson: Halesworth’s Victorian Photographer “, at the United Reformed Church, Quay Street on Thursday 26 September, will begin at 7.30. As in the Spring, admission will be £3 or £1.50 for Friends of the Museum. Refreshments will be available.

VOTE FOR HALESWORTH (MUSEUM)!

As museums go, the Halesworth and District Museum may be small but we like to think we punch above our weight. So this year we’ve taken our courage in both hands and decided to compete with the Big Boys in the Suffolk Museum of the Year competition. Some of you may have seen the feature on our Museum (and the other competing museums) in the East Anglian Daily Times. You may even have heard our Curator, Mike Fordham, extolling our small-but-perfectly-formed virtues on BBC Radio Suffolk.

The judges look at every aspect of a museum’s activities and displays and we’re hoping that all the work our volunteers are currently putting in to bring the Museum to the people of the district will be looked on with favour. This year alone, we’ll have bought the Bronze-Age Wissett Hoards for an eventual new display in the Museum, put on our first winter exhibition for years, staged four local history talks, canvassed every local school on what we can do to help them, published a book of Victorian photographs of the town (being launched in September), supported the Harry Becker celebrations with a jointly-organised exhibition in the Library, hosted five coach-parties from Southwold looking at the history of the railway and the town, developed our website and seen more visitors (so far this year) than we’ve seen for many years. All this alongside our usual annual displays in the Museum – this year on Dairying in Halesworth and Toys and Comics of Yesteryear.

If you think that’s worth crowing about and if you’d like to support our efforts to put Halesworth firmly on the museum map, there’s still time to drop in at the Museum at the Railway Station and cast your vote on one of the forms to name your favourite Suffolk museum. Obviously we’d like it to be the Halesworth and District Museum but, even if it’s another one, come and vote anyway.

We’re open Tuesday to Saturday 10.00-12.30.

UNIGATE REUNITED

Many, many thanks to all the people who got in touch with Mike Fordham, the Museum Curator, after our piece in last month’s Community News asking for memories of the old Unigate Depot up at the Railway Station. We’ve been thrilled by the response and the amount of detail people have been able to give us. Clearly the Depot was a very important part of many people’s lives.

In fact we’re so impressed that we are now planning a get-together later in the year for former employees. There will be photographs and other memorabilia on display and a chance for people to share their memories and add them to the Museum’s ‘Memory Bank’. Best of all, it will be a chance for people to meet up with old friends and work-mates over a cup of tea.

If you’d like to be kept in touch with a view to coming along or contributing in some way to this event, please get in touch with the Museum’s Publicity Officer, Vic Gray at 01986 872437 or e-mail grayvw@globalnet.co.uk. Even if you’ve contacted us already, please let us know if this is of interest to you.

The exhibition on the History of Dairying, taking the story of milk, butter and cheese production in the area through from mediaeval times to the closure of the Unigate plant is at the Museum until the end of September alongside a fine display of toys and comics of yesteryear. They are both proving popular and, yet again, our visitor numbers are up on last year. We thank everyone for their support and encouragement.

The Museum (at the Railway Station) is open Tuesday to Saturday 10.00  – 12.30.

WE NEED YOUR MEMORIES

Did you by any chance ever work for Unigate Creameries at their Halesworth Depot up at the Railway Station? It’s a long time since it closed – 1968 in fact – but it was once an important part of the town’s life and economy and it’s at risk of being forgotten.

While he was preparing his exhibition on the History of Dairying in Halesworth, Mike Fordham, Curator of the Halesworth and District Museum, came to wonder if there was anyone still living in the area who had worked there and could contribute any memories of life and work at the Depot. It started life at the beginning of the last century as a business run by Mr John Wells, who sold out to the Dairy Supply Company in 1918, which in turn became United Dairies. Until 1933, it was in Angel Yard, behind the Angel Hotel, and in that year moved up to a new building beside the station. At its busiest it had a staff of 56 and handled 40,000 gallons a day.

Mike’s exhibition, which takes the story of milk, butter and cheese production in the area through from mediaeval times to the closure of the Unigate plant can be seen at the Museum until the end of September. Also new for this season is a display of toys and comics of yesteryear, which should bring back memories for several generations. The Museum (at the Railway Station) is open Tuesday to Saturday 10.00  – 12.30.

If you can add anything to the story of the Halesworth Dairy, do come and tell us about it or give Mike Fordham a ring on 01986 873030.

ANCIENT KITCHEN SECRETS REVEALED

The Museum Talks series, organized by the Halesworth and District Museum got off to a great start with nearly sixty people coming to listen to John Bennett talk about ‘The Southwold Railway: its Past and Future’. The wonderful new layout of the United Reformed Chapel in Quay Street proved to be a fine space for talks of this sort.

We hope for a similar interest when sometime Halesworth-resident Moira Coleman returns to the town in May to talk about ‘The Kitchen Secrets of an Elizabethan Country Lady’ based on her researches into the recipes and household accounts of Lady Catherine Tollemache of Helmingham Hall. The records she left behind enable us not only to recreate the style of the dishes and meals served up at the Hall to its stately residents and guests but also where, in the days before local shops and on-line deliveries, she got her ingredients.

As well as an avid collector of other people’s recipes, many of them historic even in her day, she was also skilled herself in preparing medicines and perfumery.

All this you can hear about at the United Reformed Church, Quay Street, at 7.30 on Thursday 16 May. £3 admission (£1.50 for Friends of the Museum). Refreshments available. Or you can buy her book on the subject, ‘Fruitful Endeavours’, from the Halesworth Bookshop for £15.

NEW MUSEUM DISPLAYS FOR 2013

Now’s the time when the Halesworth and District Museum, up at the Railway Station, bursts back into summer life. So now you have a chance to catch up with what Mike Fordham, our Curator, has been up to, assembling the new 2013 displays.

You’ll find two new subjects this year. ‘Dairying in Halesworth’ takes the story of dairying through from the days when most cottages would have their own butter churn and access to fresh milk from a local cow, through to the time when the United Dairies had their big production plant up by the Railway Station.

‘Toys and Comics of Yesteryear’ features a range of toys which have been donated, over the years, to the Museum’s collections, from Victorian jigsaw puzzles to Dinky toys, via toy trains and dolls. An ideal (and free!) outing on your doorstep for the kids during the summer holidays.

Our summer opening hours are now in operation, so come and see us between 10.00 and 12.30 any day between Tuesday and Saturday. Admission is still free.

And when you’ve done all that, there’s still more. In the Gallery at the Library is another free display, this time of farming photos from the 1920s, the time when celebrated artist Harry Becker was living and painting in Wenhaston. The Museum has been pleased to play its part in supporting the recent series of events and concerts by the Halesworth Community Choir, all celebrating the life of Becker.

DAIRYMAIDS AND DINKY TOYS AT THE MUSEUM

Summer? Remember it? It seems so far away. The dictionary definition is ‘The second and warmest season of the year, coming between spring and autumn’. What happens if you didn’t have a spring?

Incredibly, we’re only a few weeks away from the Halesworth and District Museum’s summer-opening period, bringing with it longer opening hours and new displays. With an enthusiastic group of new volunteers to back up our service and with the encouraging knowledge that last year more than twice as many people visited our displays and events in the Museum and the Library, we’re keen to offer as much ‘open time’ as we can. So we’ll be open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10.00 to 12.30. And in the longer term we’d like to get back to some afternoon openings as well.

This year, Curator Mike Fordham is setting up two new displays. One will describe the intriguing story of dairy production – milk, butter and cheese – in our area, through from farmhouse activity to the heyday of the United Dairies plant in Bungay Road, which overlooked the railway station until its closure in 1968.

Elsewhere, and with children of every age in mind, there will be a display of toys and comics of yesteryear from the Museum’s collections, a chance to come along and reminisce with us or, if you’re very young, to be amazed at what kept us amused in the days before Atari, XBoxes and Wii.

The Museum’s summer season up at the Railway Station starts on 1 May. Come and see us. And don’t forget: if you can’t get there in normal opening hours, you can always ring Mike Fordham to try to arrange a special visit.

WHERE’S YOUR FLARES?

Community News February 2013

WHERE’S YOUR FLARES?

Have you still got an Abba song running through your head?  Do you still get hot under the collar about the 3-Day Week or the Winter of Discontent?

Then you remember the 1970s and you may have something to contribute to this year’s Big Museum Venture: ‘Halesworth in the 1970s’. We’re going to try to recapture a bit of the spirit of that time and awaken a lot of slumbering memories. Do you remember where you were at the Queen’s Silver Jubilee? Can you remember the death of Elvis? Or the day our first woman Prime Minister arrived at No. 10? Were you one of the lucky ones who got the first of the newly invented VCRs? Or a Sony Walkman? Even, perhaps, one of those brick-sized mobile phones?

Or maybe you were still playing with your Space Hopper and wishing you could get a Commodore PET or an Atari for Christmas, play Space Invaders or show off a brand-new digital watch at school. You young-uns can tell us a lot about growing up in the 1970s.

The 70s Project will kick off in earnest in the late summer and run for a year, during which time we’ll be staging 70s events and displays and capturing memories of that hectic decade, both from people who were in the area at the time and from those who have strong recollections of what they were doing elsewhere.

But in the meantime, watch this space and get digging at the back of the bottom drawer for those old flares you’ve never got round to throwing away or those hot pants you can’t quite squeeze into anymore, and especially those photos of you in your platforms or your sideburns. ‘Saturday Night Fever’ is returning to town!

For further details or to take part, contact Vic Gray at the Halesworth and District Museum, 01986 872437, grayvw@globalnet.co.uk

ONWARD AND UPWARD AT THE MUSEUM

Community News January 2013

ONWARD AND UPWARD AT THE MUSEUM

We’ve had our brief pause for turkey and a mince pie and we’re off again, up at the Museum.

2012 left us smiling (perhaps a little wearily). We’d staged an exhibition for the Jubilee and another on Policing in Halesworth – our first winter exhibition. We’d sold out two editions of Mike Fordham’s book on the Blyth Navigation. We’d brought the town together in celebrating Halesworth’s Sporting Past. We’d packed out The Cut for a lecture on the newly discovered ‘Halesworth hero’, Thomas Fella. We’d raised funds, with the help of local people, to buy the fabulous Wissett Bronze Age hoards. We’d found ourselves some terrific new volunteers, doubling the number who are now helping out with all our activities. And, best of all, you’d rewarded us by showing up at our events and contacting us at almost three times the level of the previous year, while many other museums are watching numbers decline.

Now for 2013. Encouraged by your support and enthusiasm, we’re planning two new summer displays in the Museum: one on Toys of Yesteryear, the other on Dairying in the Halesworth area. We’re hoping to launch a series of history talks, open to anyone with an interest in the past. We’re going to publish a new book of Victorian photographs of Halesworth. We plan to put the Wissett Hoard on display once it’s been properly conserved. And, late in the summer we’re going to launch a big new project  on the 1970s, involving us in displaying lots of photographs and objects gathered from local people and interviewing people about local life in the Age of Abba, the 3-Day Week, Evel Knievel, ‘The Good Life’, Flares and Loons. So dust off your platforms, climb aboard your Space Hopper and come and join us. Who says museums are just bones and dust!

LAW AND DISORDER IN HALESWORTH

Community News December 2012

3,000 YEAR OLD TREASURES COMES HOME

December 2012

LAW AND DISORDER IN HALESWORTH

With the future of policing very much in the news at the moment, you might be interested to learn a bit more about how things have been done in the past.

Did you know there was a time when Halesworth had at least four police officers stationed  (and living) in the town? Did you know that for a few brief years, Halesworth had two policing systems operating in the town at the same time? Have you heard of the time when the Riot Act had to be read and troops called out to stop an angry protest march in the town? Do you know which Chief Constable in Suffolk ended up in gaol? Do you know how many different police stations there were in Victorian Halesworth? Can you tell us where all of them were? Or how many of them are still standing?

If you scored poorly in this little quiz, then you might like to brush up your knowledge by calling in on the special exhibition ‘Policing Victorian Halesworth’ which is on at the Halesworth and District Museum in the Railway Station until 15 December. It’s open, free, Tuesdays to Saturdays, between 10.00 and 12.30.

One important focus of the exhibition is a series of exhibits relating to the murder of Police Constable Ebenezer Tye in Chediston Street on 25 November 1862 – exactly 150 years ago. Just 24 years old, Tye had only been stationed in the town 18 months when he was beaten to death while trying to apprehend a burglar. In tribute to him, the Suffolk Police Museum has specially loaned these exhibits, which were carefully preserved after the trial of Tye’s murderer. A century and a half later they are as poignant as ever.

The Museum has usually gone over to its reduced winter hours by now but, for the first time ever and thanks to the willingness of our keen team of volunteers, we are rolling back the winter to mark this anniversary appropriately.

Finally, the Chariman and Trustees of the Museum would like to say a special merry Christmas to all those volunteers and Friends who have made possible one of the most successful years in the history of the Museum, a year in which the number of people visiting the Museum and its exhibitions has nearly trebled! Speaking of which – a very happy Christmas to all of them too!