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.
Don’t forget to book your place on our Behind the Scenes tours! See how staff are preparing for the new North Hertfordshire Museum. Find out about the history of the buildings and the museums. Have a look at objects as they are cleaned and packed.
Tours are free, start at 10am and last approximately 40mins. Spaces are limited and tours must be booked in advance (tours without sufficient bookings may be rescheduled).
You can book onto a tour at Letchworth Museum or Hitchin Museum (or one of each!).
Hitchin Museum dates
Fridays
21 February,
28 March,
25 April
To book telephone: 01462 434476
or email: hitchin.museum@north-herts.gov.uk
Letchworth Museum dates
Tuesdays
11 March,
15 April
To book telephone: 01462 685647
One hundred years ago today, Barry Parker, one of the architects of Letchworth Garden City, wrote a letter giving a fascinating insight into the beginnings of Letchworth Museum and the people involved in setting it up.
The letter is about finding a site for a museum. Barry Parker had already written about this to Aneurin Williams, Chairman of First Garden City Ltd, and had also met him to discuss the matter further. The general agreement seems to be that the committee of the Naturalists’ Society should make a formal application to the directors of First Garden City Ltd, and once First Garden City Ltd have responded, the matter can be further discussed by the wider membership of the Naturalists Society.
A letter from Barry Parker
A W Brunt gives a good summary of the setting up and early years of the museum in his book “Pageant of Letchworth”. He wrote this while he held the Chair of the Naturalists’ Society, a post he had taken up in 1923 and continued to hold into the 1940s, so he would have experienced it all first hand.
There had been talk about having a museum as part of the new Garden City for several years. In 1906 the Letchworth Citizen mentioned that part of the original plan for Howard Hall had included a museum to show the archaeology that had been uncovered on the Garden City Estate. When the Garden City Naturalists’ Society was set up in 1908, it included amongst its aims ‘the formation of a museum’. Other members of the Naturalists’ Society included Barry Parker and W P Westell (who was to become the first museum curator), and the Secretary in 1914 was Rev E Everett, to whom this letter is addressed.
Though he had written to Mr Williams, Barry Parker notes that he “did not anticipate he would be able to give any such matters consideration until after his election”. In January of that year, Aneurin Williams was elected as the Liberal candidate for North West Durham. A month later, Barry Parker had managed to meet him to discuss the museum matter further, and so plans had been put in place at this point to progress the project.
Though 100 years seems a long time ago, the letters and newspapers from this time reveal familiar stories. Just as these men spent many years discussing and working towards the building of the Letchworth Museum, so the museum service and people of North Hertfordshire have long been talking about the plans for our new museum. It will be interesting to follow the progress of the plans from 100 years ago in future blogs, and note at the same time the progress being made in our own project as both move towards realisation.