Rural Roadshow comes to Kildwick & Farnhill!

This weekend we brought the rural roadshow to Kildwick and Farnhill Institute. It was another opportunity for visitors to come and have an up-close look at some of our historic items.

Visitors taking part in some hands-on history with one of our dedicated volunteers

Kildwick and Farnhill History Group also came along to show visitors some of their recent projects. It was a very busy morning with plenty to see and do!

We also continued our People’s Museum project, where visitors have been bringing us some of their own precious items to take a look at. We saw some very interesting objects, including a carved stone head found bricked in face down in the wall of a Farnhill garden shed. It was only discovered when the owner pulled the shed down!

A carved stone head found in the walls of a shed in Farnhill

A member of the Kildwick and Farnhill History Group also showed us a fascinating object that belonged to one of their relatives. It is known as a Bristow Coil and was named after Walter Rowley Bristol. He was an orthopaedic surgeon who developed the use of Faraday’s principle of using electromagnetically controlled voltages for treating joint and muscle injuries. It was also used during WWI to treat injured servicemen.

A Bristow Coil that used electromagnetic voltages to treat join and muscle injuries

To see all the other fantastic objects brought along on the day, visit our People’s Museum page. Have you got your own treasure that you’d like to share with Craven Museum? Check out our events page to see our upcoming Roadshows!

Thanks to all our visitors and volunteers who helped out on the day.

Pottery- old & new

We are half way through the summer holidays and we have been as busy as ever!

On Wednesday we travelled to Burton in Lonsdale to hold a Make & Take craft workshop in the village hall. Lots of people braved the wet weather and joined us to make dinosaurs, sheep and mosaics! A big thank-you to volunteers Jean, Janet and Ruth for helping to run the workshop and making sure everyone had such a great time! We hope to be back to visit soon.

 

On Thursday, our staff and volunteers went to York to meet Anne Jenner, a specialist in Medieval pottery at York Archaeological Trust who gave us plenty of tips to help research and document the pottery that was found in a site behind the Town Hall. Over the next three months, our collections volunteers will be identifying different types of pottery and we will be sharing more about these finds in a future blog- watch this space!

At Skipton Town Hall this morning we travelled back in time to create our own Neolithic clay pots! We got very messy and had lots of fun!  You can join us next Friday 16^th August at Skipton Town Hall 10:00-12:00 where we will be making our own looms and learning how to weave. No need to book, just drop-in and see us!

Craven Treasures

We have been exploring ancient worlds and designing fascinating creatures with our family craft workshops! Last Friday was the very first of our summer craft Make & Take workshops in the Hub at Skipton Town Hall. It was amazing to see so many familiar faces from our workshops last year!

Using tiny fragments of mosaic found at the site of Kirk Sink villa in Gargrave as our inspiration, we created our own mosaic patterns using multi-coloured paper tiles. Wealthy Romans often decorated the floors of their homes with vast mosaics, using everyday scenes as well as myths and historical events to create intricate patterns using tiny coloured tiles called tesserae. We took inspiration from our town and made some special mosaic sheep!

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Dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago but this week saw an invasion of prehistoric creatures! We saw some amazing creations, from a T-rex with an array of different hats to dragons chasing a princess from her tower! A huge thank you to our volunteers Kathy and Chloe who helped at both of the events.

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We have a summer full of activities planned and look forward to seeing you all again next Friday at the Hub 10am-midday and every Friday until 30^th August!

• Make & Take on the road- we will be making a special stop at Burton-in-Lonsdale Village Hall on Wednesday 7^th August for even more craft fun. Join us there for a free drop-in event.

Family Fun Morning

Our blog this week has been written by our new volunteer Chloe, who is helping with our family craft workshops throughout the summer. Thanks Chloe!

Last Wednesday, Craven Museum was at Aireville Park in Skipton again for the annual Family Fun Morning. This was a fantastic event to kick off the Summer Holidays with lots of activities on offer, made even better by the lovely weather (thankfully not as hot as Thursday!). We set ourselves up next to the bouncy castle and face-painting, which remained extremely popular throughout the morning, and there was a fantastic atmosphere all round.

We brought with us a varied selection of interesting objects from the museum’s handling collection. Everyone enjoyed getting their gloves on and channelling their inner-historian to guess what the items were and who may have used them. They ranged from ancient objects including fossils, a Stone Age axe and Roman mosaics found in Gargrave to more recent items, such as a box of Sylko threads manufactured at Belle Vue Mills in Skipton and a tiny pair of leather shoes worn by young factory workers.

Some of our younger visitors were shocked to discover that, had they been alive in Victorian times, they too would have been factory workers rather than school children.

In addition to object handling, we also hosted some craft activities. Visitors had great fun making origami rabbits, cats and other animals from beautiful patterned paper, as well as miniature spinning windmills. The slight breeze made this all the more exciting, with some creatures making an escape off the table!

We had a very busy and successful morning with lots of great feedback from the many people who came. Craven Museum will continue to host free events for the local community throughout the holidays, including Make & Take craft sessions every Friday at the Hub in the Town Hall, 10-12 noon. We hope to see you there!

My Work Experience With Craven Museum

This week Katie from South Craven School came to do some work experience at the Museum. See below for her blog post about her time with us!

This week I had the pleasure of being able to complete my work experience with the Craven museum team. It has been very helpful offering me an insight of what working in museums and galleries could potentially be like. In addition, I have been able to experiment with different skills such as organising information and photogrammetry (more on that later) but most importantly, working with the museum has allowed me to gain an appreciation of the rich levels of heritage and culture that surround me in this historic part of England, an aim which I’m sure the museum are very pleased to have achieved.

Day one greeted me with a friendly introduction to the group and an overall summary of what my role as a volunteer would be. Gemma, the community heritage curator and who I would be shadowing, introduced me to the museum’s project of ‘Mystery Boxes’. Mystery boxes are large chests full of historical items which are free to go out into the public and education systems for all to enjoy. Each box has a different theme and inside contains an array of different historical artefacts relating to the theme. For example, my box was titled ‘Childhood Memories’ and contained over 30 items which were popular or used in the 1940s and 50s such as a rationing book, various vinyls, the 1955 Lion annual and interestingly a ‘Holidays at home booklet’ which was given out to the people of Skipton during WW2. The booklet aimed to encourage residents to stay at home for the holiday season in order to restrict public transport; it describes a variety of activities taking place in the summer, such as dances, to compensate for the restriction of travel. It was my job to organise the items and provide descriptions of their historical significance whilst also creating potential activities which could be done in schools.

The ‘Childhood memories’ Mystery Box

Gemma also showed me the proper and professional way to handle historical artefacts giving me a brief look at some of the items the collection has. Although the museum is currently closed for refurbishment, I still managed to see many different objects and fossils. One which I particularly liked was a late Victorian teddy bear that was very worn down and damaged, obviously due to the amount of love he had been given throughout the decades. After I had told Gemma I was interested in working in museums she was very helpful with answering any of my questions, as where the rest of the team, she even showed me the system which they use to categorise all their items, probably over 60,000 in their entire collection!

Taking the pictures which would later be transfered to the software to produce a 3D model

In the final few days Gemma and I began to teach ourselves the process of photogrammetry which produces 3D virtual images of any object, a gruelling but rewarding process. I chose to work with a prehistoric brown bear humerus bone which was found in the late 19th century at Elbolton Cave, North Yorkshire. The bone itself is impressive due to its great condition, but did make for a difficult image to photograph. However, after several days I managed to construct a (somewhat) 3D image of the bone, although the image is not complete I am still very pleased with how it turned out and I am very interested to see what other virtual models the museum will be able to compose in the future.

F27 – Humerous bone of a young bear by cravenmuseum on Sketchfab

Great Get Together

Last Sunday, Craven Museum was at Aireville Park in Skipton with some of our favourite objects as part of the Great Get Together family picnic. Inspired by the memory of Jo Cox MP and supported by the Jo Cox foundation, the Great Get Together is an excellent way for communities to come together.

We had lots of craft activities and everyone enjoyed making summer flowers and origami fish, cats and boats! Other activities across the park included face painting and craft activities, a shared picnic, a Quiet Teepee run by Skipton Library, and music on the bandstand from Skipton Community Orchestra, Skipton Ukulele Club, and the community choir All Together Now.

Throughout the day, our team shared museum objects such as the remains of roman mosaics found in Gargrave. Kirk Sink villa in Gargrave was discovered after a plough turned up a Roman mosaic floor. It was excavated most extensively between 1968 and 1975 and lots of colourful mosaics have been found throughout the remains of the villa buildings. The important rooms in the houses had more complex designs, often including geometric patterns. There is also evidence that the mosaics were replaced in some of the rooms throughout the period.

Roman mosaics were created from individual blocks called tesserae, and would be made from natural stone found in the local area. Sometimes decorative tiles made from special materials such as tile and pottery would be added in order to make the mosaics more impressive. Designs varied, but often included geometric patterns, or famous figures and scenes from history and mythology.

The day was a great success and the brilliant weather made it a perfect event! We can’t wait to share Craven Museum with the local community and we will be out and about again at The Craven Leisure Family Fun Morning on Wednesday 24^th July from 10-12 noon with free activities for families to enjoy.

 

Craven and the First World War Project: A Reflection

As the centenary of the First World War comes to a close, we had a chat with Rob Freeman, the project officer for the Craven and the First World War Project, about his time working on the project and with Craven Museum.

How did the Project come about, and what has it involved?

Craven and the First World War Project started in 2013, when community groups and organisations in Craven such as Craven Museum, The Folly Museum of North Craven Life, local schools and libraries, decided to commemorate the centenary of the First World War. They applied to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for funding, and I was brought into the project in 2014. Since then the project has had two phases. The first (2014-2017) included collecting people’s stories about WWI – particularly recording the memories of descendants – and exhibiting these stories at museums such as The Folly in Settle. We also put on lots of community events, for example drama productions like Tunstill’s Men, and a commemoration concert with local musicians. The second phase of the project (2017-2019) has focused on Raikeswood Camp in Skipton, particularly finding out about the lives of the German Prisoners of War (POWs) who were held there.

How did you collect the stories about the First World War in Craven?

One of the main ways we captured people’s stories about WWI was through an oral history project. The exhibitions we ran in The Folly had generated lots of local interest from families who had ancestors in Craven during 1914-18, and many of them wanted to share their stories. There was also a call-out for participants in the Craven Herald. About 10 interviews were conducted overall with the help of our fantastic volunteers, who carried out the conversations and transcribed them afterwards. As it’s the centenary, all of the accounts were second or third hand, but we still got a large range of stories from people with different backgrounds, including men who went to fight abroad, clergymen who were posted in France, and Conscientious Objectors. The interviews really helped us to learn more about the lives of those from Craven in the First World War, and have been deposited in Craven Museum where anyone can request to listen to them or read the transcript if they would like to discover more.

What did the Raikeswood Camp part of the Project involve?

Raikeswood Camp is a very interesting and important part of Skipton’s First World War story. Work on building the camp began in 1914, and it was used as a British training camp for new recruits between 1915-16, including the Bradford Pals. In 1918, it changed role and became a Prisoner of War camp for German soldiers. To find out more about the history of the camp, you can visit the Raikeswood Camp website. Whilst the POWs occupied the camp, they produced many pieces of writing and drawings about their experiences, and after the war these were compiled in a book called Kriegsgefangen in Skipton. The book is now being translated by the Legacies of War team at the University of Leeds, led by Anne Buckley, and will be published in spring 2020. You can read extracts and learn more about the project at their website.

As part of the Craven in the First World War Project, we also undertook two archaeological digs at the Raikeswood camp site. The first involved an excavation at the main dig site – an open field that hasn’t been developed on at the Raikeswood estate. The second included a more thorough dig at the field site, but we were also lucky enough to have local residents allow us to dig small plots in their gardens so that we could uncover even more of the camp’s history. We invited local schools and community groups to get involved in the digging along with our professional and community archaeologists. There were also site open days where the public could come and learn about the history of the camp and what we found – they could even get involved in the digging themselves!

It’s Volunteers’ Week!

Volunteers’ Week takes place every year from the 1-7 of June, and is a chance to celebrate all of the fantastic work our volunteers do here at Craven Museum. Between February and May we’ve been running a cataloguing project, where our volunteers have been working through our ephemera collection and adding previously unrecorded objects to our Museum database, so that they can be used for future research. They have also been helping out at our Craven Museum on Tour events, showing visitors our fascinating handling collection.

On the 4th of June we invited our volunteers to a tea and cake afternoon to show our appreciation, and to have a chat with them about their work.

We asked them to describe in three words what their experience of volunteering at Craven Museum has been like. Check out the image below to see what they said!

We also had a chat with Martin, one of our long-standing volunteers who has also been involved in our recent cataloguing project, about his time at Craven Museum.

Martin, what inspired you to start volunteering at Craven Museum?

I started volunteering around 10 years ago when I heard that Craven Museum was recruiting some new volunteers. I never studied history formally, but I got into it as a hobby and wanted to get more involved with the Museum. I really enjoy learning about Medieval Britain and the War of the Roses, but I don’t have a favourite period in history – all of it is fascinating . Keeping an open mind means you sometimes come across stories and past events that you never thought would be interesting, but are actually really intriguing!

You have recently been working on the Volunteer Cataloguing Project – what have you found during this time?

Recently we have discovered a large quantity of papers relating to the Dewhurst Mill estate, which have been a really unexpected find. Dewhurst’s was one of the largest Mills in Skipton, but these papers talk about the properties that the family owned around the town, not the day-to-day business of the mill. They cover everything from property repairs and correspondence about access, to water pipes and building rights. The collection includes lots of old maps, which show properties that have now been demolished, along with lists of tenants who lived in the buildings – it’s like a jigsaw putting it all together! It’s also a really valuable resource, as it may be able to help people who are interested in researching their family history, or looking into the history of certain areas in Skipton.

Dewhurst Mill ephemera documents from the cataloguing project.

That’s great! So overall, why do you like volunteering at Craven Museum?

I love the fact that you never know what you’re going to find in the collection! Working on the ephemera boxes is particularly interesting, as you often find documents that contain ‘little history’ stories – not big events, but small pieces of information that tell you about the lives of ordinary people living in Craven. There’s also a good volunteering community, and it’s nice to meet new people and spend time with others who you have something in common with.

Thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers who contribute a huge amount to Craven Museum! Would you like to get involved in volunteering yourself? Feel free to contact us about our upcoming projects.

Craven Museum on Tour comes to Cross Hills!

At our Craven Museum on Tour Library Roadshow event at Cross Hills, we invited our work experience students Libby and David to come along and get involved with a morning of hands-on history. The post below was written by David.

On the 29^th of May we travelled to the Cross Hills Library and met some of the amazing people there. The museum brought their handling collection along including a replica stone age hand axe. Some people even brought their own items in and it was an overall great day!

Some of the objects brought in were absolutely amazing like this cook book from 1869! The cook book even described the oven as a ‘Modern oven’ which it is obviously not but it was in 1869. It even shows the changes to kitchen appliances such as the toaster in the book is just a box.

There was also this very interesting book which taught mothers how to give treatment to their child if it was required with the medical knowledge they had at the time which was around 1930.

See the rest of the objects people brought in on the People’s Museum page.

Neolithic pottery experts Mike and Claire

Mike and his wife Claire was also there with their amazing Neolithic replica pot collection which Mike made himself based on original archeological finds.

Thank you to all of the wonderful staff at Cross Hills library, to our volunteers and to work experience students! To find out more about what’s on at Cross Hills library, just follow this link. To find out about our upcoming library roadshows and museum events, check out our Events page!

Neolithic Pot Making

Whilst the museum is closed we are visiting schools around Craven with our specially created Discovery boxes. Each box is filled with real and replica examples of museum objects and each box has a different theme. Our university work placement student Megan has been creating our latest box about the Stone Age.

After deciding on the objects that we would like to include in the box, we set about finding objects in the collection. As we have a limited amount of Stone Age objects in the museum collection that would be suitable for handling, we decided to source our own! Graham Harrison at Sun Jester created some fantastic replicas for us, such as a hand axe, arrow heads and a bone needle which were then packed into our Discovery box. Megan designed a special teacher’s pack, a timeline and activities to go in the box too. However, we had one object missing! We really wanted to include a replica Neolithic pot because this would be a great example of the first pottery made in Britain and it would be great to have a version that people could touch and learn more about.

With the help of Dr Mike Copper, we learnt the traditional techniques for making a Neolithic pot. The whole process takes quite a while. First, clay has to be sourced and Mike knows all the best spots for collecting naturally occuring clay! The pot is then formed using similar techniques that would have been used during the Neolithic period, starting with a flat, round base and building height using rolls or ‘sausages’ of clay. Once the pot is tall enough and all the cracks and joins have been smoothed out, the next step is to decorate the pots! Mike has created his own replica tools that he uses to create traditional decorations. It’s then time to fire the pot! A small fire is built and when it becomes hot enough, the dried pots are carefully added and covered with peat. More fuel is added throughout the firing to keep the pots covered, making sure that the heat is evenly distributed. Finally, once the fuel has burnt down, the finished pots are revealed! You can see more about this process below:

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The finished pots will be added to our Stone Age Discovery box for schools to borrow. Students will get a chance to touch pots that have been crafted in an almost identical way to how the first pottery would have been made. Making the pots was a lot of fun and helped us to understand the processes used and the tools and techniques that were developed. We hope that this hands-on experience will help students learn more about the Stone Age.

If your school or organisation would like to borrow one of our Discovery boxes, you can contact us at museum@cravendc.gov.uk