My Worcester Pop up Museum – meeting the Worcester Belles WI
- 10th August 2015
Sarah is our Skills for the Future trainee on a 15 month placement here at Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. She is currently working on a joint project with her fellow trainees. This is a pop-up museum which will be open as part of the Worcester Festival to publicise the collections of Worcester’s museums, archives and historic libraries.
My Worcester Pop-up Museum leaflet
This project has given us the opportunity to plan and create a pop-up museum, which will be held in Reindeer Court from Thursday 20th to Saturday 22nd August and will be open 11am to 3pm each day. It will publicise Worcester’s heritage with the theme of ‘My Worcester’ where local groups and members of the Worcester community were invited to choose favourite objects from each of the 8 heritage institutions involved with the Skills for the Future traineeships.
Worcester Belles WI
This was the fun bit. Members of Worcester Belles Women’s Institute came to the Hive to chat about the documents from Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service and eat biscuits. They chatted for quite a while and said they found it ‘hard to choose’ their favourite from the selection of documents, because ‘they were all so interesting’.
Worcester Belles WI select documents from Worcestershire Archive Service
But finally they narrowed it down to a few favourites, and these are currently on display in the cases on level 2 of The Hive. The WI ladies selected two photographs – one is of ladies hop-picking in Harvington (near Evesham) in 1917, and the other is ice-skaters on the County cricket ground in 1956. And their favourite document for Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology, after much discussion, is the 1732 Hanbury Hall map book. This will feature on a panel at the pop-up exhibition in Reindeer Court, alongside panels from the 8 other placements involved in the project.
Detail from the Hanbury Hall map book 1731-2 now on display on Level 2 at The Hive
The exhibition at The Hive can be seen now, and can be viewed at any time between 8.30am and 10pm on level 2. It will be there throughout the Worcester Festival, ending on 2nd September.
Why not pop along to see the pop-up museum too. It will be free to enter, and open between 20th to 22nd August between 11 to 3 each day, with family activities and craft sessions, so. The objects featured on the other panels can be viewed in the other museums and libraries around the city, so it’s the perfect chance to get out there and see all the great historic things Worcester has to offer.
The other sites involved in the project are University Research Collections (also exhibiting in The Hive on level 2), The Elgar Birthplace Museum (open as normal), The Museum of Royal Worcester (free on Sundays during the Worcester Festival), Worcester Cathedral Library (open for paid tours during the Worcester Festival), The Infirmary and The George Marshall Medical Museums (open as normal), and Worcester Museum and Art Gallery (open as normal).
Sarah Ganderton
Comments are closed.