Ros Allwood
In 2011 the Museum Service was successful in gaining a Stage 1 bid from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards our new museum project. Last November we submitted our Stage 2 bid, to take the grant up to £1million. We will hear whether we have been successful or not later next month, but as part of the assessment process three HLF representatives came to North Herts. on Wednesday, to ask questions about the new museum, and to see the site. Luckily the rain had stopped, so we were able to show exactly where the new entrance will be, the site of the museum and new exhibition gallery, and we had a look what will become a large basement store. We also saw
Site visit by John Robinson, Sandra Hirons (HLF offficer), Ros Allwood, Philip Venning (HLF East of England Committee) and Sophia Mirchandani (HLF External Assessor)
the Mountford Hall and Lucas Room. With a little imagination it is easy to forget the mud and earth-moving equipment currently on site, and visualise our wonderful new museum; now that it is actually happening, it is very exciting.
Volunteer Vicky with her favourite Ichthyosaur skull
At long last our extensive geology collection is now almost completely catalogued and on the computer, thanks to the hard work of volunteer Vicky Fish. Vicky has been coming to the Burymead store every Monday for the last year, carefully cataloguing the fossils, geology and stratigraphy. Her experience here (and at Ashwell Museum) helped her win a coveted place on the Leicester University post-grad Museum Studies course, which she starts on Monday. Thanks to Vicky we now know that the collection includes fossils of large marine reptiles (Plesiosaur and Carcharodon megalodon) found in Letchworth and Baldock dating back 90 million years, when this area was sub-tropical, and covered in 100 metres of warm water. We wish her the best of luck for the future.
Earlier this year the Museum Service was fortunate to receive grant-aid to buy a William Ratcliffe painting called Reflections Ickleford, which shows part of the now-demolished Hyde Mill, Ickleford.
Cas outside Ickleford School with the copy of the Ratcliffe painting we have given them (it’s a photo on canvas, and came out really well)
Some of the generous Heritage Lottery funding was also for project work in Ickleford, to enable local residents to learn more about the history of their village, and particularly about Hyde Mill. Working with local volunteers, the Museum Service helped with displays in the church on the Open Village weekend, visited the school, and helped with the excavation of the mill site. The photos show some of the work which has taken place so far; watch this space for the rest of the project.
Display in the church on 23 June at Ickleford Open Village, showing the Hyde Mill pop-up panels.
Amanda helping young visitors at the Ickleford Open Village event
Looking at some of the excavated material from the Hyde Mill site
Jo Ward (seated), our Audience Development consultant, giving out her questionnaires at Ickleford Open Village
At Ickleford School last month, with our excellent pop-up panels (thanks to the HLF)
Back to Ickleford School to present the painting and a mounted Victorian map of the village