People
Whilst continuing our audit of the social history store at Burymead we have come across two interesting items; they are a human jawbone and an incomplete set of teeth.
The first object, the jawbone was dug up in the grounds of Hitchin Priory in 1852 and is believed to be that of a young male.
The second item is an incomplete set of human teeth with some detail of them being from the body of a Joan Biggs who was a suicide victim who was later exhumed in 1906 from what we believe to be the crossroads by the Radcliffe pub in Hitchin. The body was exhumed as the grave had become a landmark.
We have attempted to research who Joan Biggs was, but so far have been unable to find a record of her so feel she may have been from another area or perhaps an asylum or almshouse.
If you have any further information regarding these two items please comment on the post and we will be in touch!
Introducing our new Museum Interns, Emily and Victoria. They started on the 20th May and will be based in Hitchin going through the social history store.
The work begins!
Bob Press, our wonderful Natural History volunteer, has discovered that not only do we have one of Hitchin’s last red squirrels hidden away in the store at Burymead, but also that it has an interesting story. Around 1910 an elderly lady, Miss Hailey rescued it from a group of youths who were tormenting it in Hitchin churchyard. Miss Hailey lived at the Biggin almshouses nearby, and fed the squirrel, which became semi-tame and apparently continued to live around the Biggin until the day she found it dead in the snow – probably in the winter following its rescue. It was stuffed and mounted and later donated to the museum.
Reds are our only native squirrels. Nowadays, they are confined mainly to Scotland and small areas of Wales and East Anglia, having been replaced everywhere else by the more aggressive grey squirrel, first introduced into Britain from N. America in 1890 at Woburn and later at Tring. By 1910 greys had colonised Hitchin, so our little fellow may have been one of the last reds living in the town itself. Reds did cling on in rural parts of North Herts but the last recorded sightings were of a pair at Highdown Woods ( three miles from Hitchin) in 1943, and individuals at Knebworth Park and Preston Hill, both in 1944. Of course we also have the famous Letchworth black squirrels, now spreading around the rest of North Herts, (see The Black Squirrel Project ) and a new fourth type, the brunette squirrel.
Bob Press and the Hitchin red quirrel