Poking around an antiques shop in Llanrwst on holiday I was very surprised to find a mounted A4-size watercolour showing the church at Shapwick and a couple of cottages from across the river Stour, not far away from where I come from. The back bore evidence of several reductions in price and now it was down to £5, so I bought it in case the museum at Wimborne, the Priest's House, where I used to work, would like it - they cover Shapwick among other villages and when I was there we always complained that the outlying parishes were woefully under-represented in the collection.
Last week I took the painting in to the Museum and they were very glad to have it. The Curator, Emma, recognised my name from the archives: in 1991-2 I was responsible for computerising all the museum's collection records and so my initials should have been in about 15,000 separate places. My favourite recollection of that work is still coming across an index card which simply bore the words 'OBJECT. Donor: Commander ?', a record I diligently popped on the computer in the pious hope it might actually one day be connected with an actual Thing.
Among the jobs I had to do was to examine and list all the items in the external stores. These included a vile, freezing hut which contained boxes and boxes of archaeological crap from various excavations, among them four or five ice-cream cartons full of corroded nails from the Tarrant
Hinton Roman villa (I didn't list the nails individually; never make an archaeologist, me). Then there was the Long Shed: a store as ominous as its name sounds. This black, leaking wooden structure was lined with shelves, the topmost of which were devoted to wooden machinery moulds and patterns from the Witchampton Paper Mills, vertiginously piled and threatening to collapse at a breath, sheltering the biggest spiders in Christendom. It was a charnel house for objects, which sat in the dark recesses of the shelves, gradually rusting and rotting. I was supposed to treat a wooden shotgun stock for woodworm, and decided the thing was already so badly damaged I just dunked it in the tin.
All these buildings, along with the garden machinery shed and the Tea Room (which was held together with layer upon layer of green gloss paint) have been swept away and the museum is having new stores, tea room and schools room provided for £900K courtesy of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It's very exciting, and I may even be able to go back for the grand opening in July next year.
Last week I took the painting in to the Museum and they were very glad to have it. The Curator, Emma, recognised my name from the archives: in 1991-2 I was responsible for computerising all the museum's collection records and so my initials should have been in about 15,000 separate places. My favourite recollection of that work is still coming across an index card which simply bore the words 'OBJECT. Donor: Commander ?', a record I diligently popped on the computer in the pious hope it might actually one day be connected with an actual Thing.
Among the jobs I had to do was to examine and list all the items in the external stores. These included a vile, freezing hut which contained boxes and boxes of archaeological crap from various excavations, among them four or five ice-cream cartons full of corroded nails from the Tarrant
Hinton Roman villa (I didn't list the nails individually; never make an archaeologist, me). Then there was the Long Shed: a store as ominous as its name sounds. This black, leaking wooden structure was lined with shelves, the topmost of which were devoted to wooden machinery moulds and patterns from the Witchampton Paper Mills, vertiginously piled and threatening to collapse at a breath, sheltering the biggest spiders in Christendom. It was a charnel house for objects, which sat in the dark recesses of the shelves, gradually rusting and rotting. I was supposed to treat a wooden shotgun stock for woodworm, and decided the thing was already so badly damaged I just dunked it in the tin.All these buildings, along with the garden machinery shed and the Tea Room (which was held together with layer upon layer of green gloss paint) have been swept away and the museum is having new stores, tea room and schools room provided for £900K courtesy of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It's very exciting, and I may even be able to go back for the grand opening in July next year.
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