Visiting the Museum!

Our standard opening hours over Winter are:

Wednesday-Saturday 10-4.30pm

Sunday 2-4.30pm

Closed on Mondays.

Tuesdays are reserved for pre-booked group visits by schools and other parties

www.saffronwaldenmuseum.org

Over Christmas and New Year are opening hours will be: 

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day & Boxing Day : CLOSED

Bank Hol Mon 27 Dec : 2-4.30pm

Bank Hol Tues 28 Dec :  2-4.30pm

Wed 29, Thurs 30, Fri 31st Dec :              10am-4.30pm

New Year's Day (Sat 1 Jan) :  2-4.30pm

Sun 2 Jan:  2-4.30pm

Bank Hol Mon 3 Jan : 2-4.30pm

Then normal opening hours resume:

Tues 4 Jan : CLOSED

Wed 5 Jan onwards: 10am-4.30pm 

We no longer require online advance booking.

Please pay by cash or card at our welcome desk on arrival at the museum.

In the interests of safety, we encourage

• Wearing of face coverings
• Maintaining social distance
• Using hand sanitiser

These measures are no longer compulsory.

The QR code for the NHS Track & Trace app is displayed in the foyer for visitors who wish to scan it, but it is no longer compulsory for visitors to provide us with contact details.

Object of the Month

The Museum’s ‘Object of the Month’ provides an opportunity to explore interesting and unusual objects from our stores. 

December’s Object of the Month chosen by Jenny Oxley, Collections Officer (Human History) is a Princess Mary Christmas gift box, an embossed and monogrammed tin which was intended to be distributed to all members of the armed forces of the British Empire on Christmas day 1914, during World War I.

Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the British Expeditionary Force was sent to the Western Front and was soon joined by troops from the Empire, those from India arriving before the end of the year. In October 1914, George V's 17-year-old daughter, Mary, Princess Royal, launched a public appeal to fund every member of the armed forces receiving a Christmas gift.

Shortly before Christmas 1914, advertisements were placed in the British press seeking donations for the "Soldiers and Sailors Christmas fund" and £152,691 was soon raised.

The funding was used to manufacture small boxes made of silver for officers and brass for all others. However, there were metal shortages. Supplies of 45 tons of brass strip, destined to make more boxes, were lost in May 1915 when RMS Lusitania was sunk off Ireland on passage from the USA. In the latter stages of the war when metal became even more scarce, some of the tins were made from plated base metals or alloys.

Each tin was decorated with an image of Mary and other military and imperial symbols. They were typically filled with an ounce of pipe tobacco, a packet of cigarettes in a yellow monogrammed wrapper, a pipe, a tinder cigarette lighter, and a Christmas card and photograph from Princess Mary.  In reality the contents varied considerably, with some containing  sweets or chocolate, acid tablets and writing sets, pencil fashioned out of bullet parts, as they took account of gender and if the recipients were non smokers or not, or had different cultural or religious backgrounds. 

It is estimated that 400,000 were delivered by Christmas 1914, with full distribution completed in 1920, by which time approximately 2.5 million had been delivered.

The embossed brass box was air-tight, and made a useful container for money, tobacco, papers and photographs, so was often carried through subsequent service. Some troops repacked their tins and sent them home to their families.

Bronze & Bubbles

Lost wax bronze casting workshop

The perfect Christmas gift for the art lover in your life, or New Year treat to yourself! A unique chance to craft your own cast bronze sculpture at Saffron Walden Museum inspired by its historic collections and our current temporary exhibition Fossilisation.

Spend a bubbly brunch or exclusive evening with dedicated use of the Museum building and get creative with the ancient art of bronze casting using the lost wax technique. The workshop lasts 2 hours 30 minutes and will be led by Charlotte, the Museums’ Learning & Outreach Officer

Learn about the ancient lost wax process and sculpt your own wax model to be cast in bronze by Walnut Works and Butley Mills foundry in Suffolk, home to Kabir Hussain, the artist behind Fossilisation.

All guidance, equipment and materials are included in the ticket price, including the cost of casting in bronze, postage between the museum and foundry plus return delivery. Price also includes a glass of fizz, snacks and refreshments.

Tickets available from the Museum’s Art Tickets website or the Museum shop, open Wed-Sat 10:00 am – 4:30 pm and Sun 2:00 pm – 4:30 pm.

Course dates and times are Friday 14 January 2022 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm or Tuesday 25 January 2022 10:00 am – 12:30 pm. Limited to 8 spaces per course. Additional dates and times may be added if demand is high.

Ticket price £69.00, participants must be 18 or over.

For more information about workshops, see the Museum’s website

www.saffronwaldenmuseum.org or call 01799 510333

Art Tickets: https://saffron-walden-museum.arttickets.org.uk

Saffron Walden Museum
Needs You!

Do you follow us on social media, visit our website, receive our e-newsletter?

What do you think about what we do online? We’d love your feedback!

Please complete this short online survey to help us better understand our digital audiences and what you want from us.

The survey is being run regionally by SHARE and the project is called VIE (Visitor Impact East) 

Here's the link to the survey: 

https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/saffronwalden/

Your responses will help shape our future work and develop content and programmes that meet your needs.

Radical Women Walks 

Thank you to everyone who came along to the creative writing walks we held in mid November, led by author Hannah Jane Walker. 

She said of the walks: 

"I grew up in Saffron Walden and have returned to live here to raise a family. I knew quite a few stories about historical male figures of Saffron Walden, but barely anything about historical women of Saffron Walden.  I was delighted to be asked to take part in this project. 

Turns out, SW has a surprisingly radical history. I have found out lots of fascinating information about women who have lived and worked here and I have woven their stories together into a walking tour."

Jenny Oxley, Collections Officer (Human History), Saffron Walden Museum:

“This has been a a great opportunity to share more diverse stories about people who lived and worked locally, which are empowering and inspirational, and challenge people's perceptions.”

The walks on both days were fully booked and very well received.  It was great for the museum to try out something new. We hope to run them again in the new year. A downloadable map featuring the radical women's stories and creative work produced by those who attended the walks will be made available online next year. 

The walks were run as part of the regional Snapping the Stiletto project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund 

https://www.snappingthestiletto.co.uk/

Thank You Grounds Maintenance

Every winter, as temperatures fall, we put a ‘frost’ cover on to the giant glacial erratic boulder in the Museum grounds. It was found in 1973 when foundations for the Acrow (Engineers) factory on Ashdon Road, Saffron Walden were dug.  It weighs two tons and was carried to Saffron Walden from the Midlands by the Anglian ice sheet about 450,000 years ago. Rocks that are moved by glaciers are called glacial erratics. This boulder is also a septarian nodule. Made of limestone and calcite, it formed in the clay bed of the seas that flooded Britain periodically during the Jurassic period 145 to 200 million years ago. The cover stops water getting into the four cracks in the boulder. When water freezes it expands causing the cracks to widen. When the ice melts, water makes its way deeper into the cracks. If this freeze-thaw process repeats itself the boulder could split apart. The cover is made of wood and Perspex. Due to its weight, it takes four museum staff to get it out of the storage compound. This year the Grounds Maintenance team were working at the Museum, and they moved the cover for us. A big thank you to our Council colleagues.

Your Stories:

Community Showcase

Heidi Sharp joined us during the school summer holidays as our artist in resident, as part of the regional Snapping the Stiletto Project.  She explored women’s histories and untold stories, inspired by the Museum’s collections. She demonstrated her art practice in our Ceramics and Glass gallery during that time and ran a couple of printing/collage workshops in the Museum. 

Her work and a selection of work by the workshop participants is now on display in the museum's Your Stories community showcase, located at the far end of the Great Hall.

Check out these links for more information about the artist residency and the Snapping the Stiletto project as a whole: 

https://www.swmuseumlearning.com/snappingthestiletto

https://saffronwaldenmuseum.swmuseumsoc.org.uk/latest-news-blog-article-by-our-artist-in-residence-heidi-sharp-snapping-the-stiletto-project/    

Museum Shop Sunday 

Thank you to everyone who came along to the museum for Museum Shop Sunday on the 28th November. 

This national initiative held every November showcases the great breadth of products museum shops around the country sell. 

Author Rachel Morris returned to give her popular talk about "Creating a Museum from Your Own Life".

Rachel who originally hails from Newport gave a whistle-stop tour of her family's history, how she created a mini museum to tell their stories, how she came to write her book and her career as a museum consultant.  

She was also on hand after her talk to sign copies of her book. 

The last few copies are still available in the museum shop if anyone wishes to purchase a copy. They would make a lovely Christmas gift.  

www.museumshopsunday.org.uk 

Current Exhibition

Fossilisation: a slice of the Anthropocene              

Runs until 20 Mar 2022

Fossilisation features original bronze and mixed media sculpture by acclaimed artist Kabir Hussain.

Drawing on the concepts of fossilisation and preservation and accompanied by objects from across the museum collection, Fossilisation: a slice of the Anthropocene questions what traces of modern society might remain in the fossil and geological record thousands of years from now.

CV Walden Online

We are continuing to collect people's experiences of Covid-19 pandemic and how it has affected day-to-day life in the district, for future generations to understand. 

If you are interested in compiling a diary now that we could archive at a later date that would be really beneficial.

We're also interested in audio and video clips, as well as artistic responses to the current situation, such as artwork, poetry and music, etc. If you are part of a community group or organisation - consider asking your members and contacts to take part in this project. 

Contact Jenny Oxley, Collections Officer (Human History) about this project at museum@uttlesford.gov.uk and title your email "CV Walden"

A selection of the material collected for the archive to date, is now available to view online on our website

https://saffronwaldenmuseum.swmuseumsoc.org.uk/cv-walden-archive-covid-19-epidemic/

Lost Language of Nature Project

The project is progressing with conservation work on the little bittern, which is found across Europe, western Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa including Madagascar. It is the smallest member of the heron family in Europe, only about 30cm/12” long, though our specimen is smaller than that. It’s currently on a temporary foam base, waiting for work to conserve and rebuild some of the skin that has been lost from its feet. A blackbird has also had its head reattached and a wing strengthened. Work feels slow but we’ve started on some challenging pieces, so slow and steady is the order of the day! We want to make lasting changes and improvements to the information the museum holds on these items, including folk names, stories and histories of the birds. Please see the website https://www.swmuseumlearning.com/the-lost-language-project or email llon@uttlesford.gov.uk to share your forgotten names and stories.

Learning & Outreach

Saffron Walden Museum is committed to continuing to share stories from its collections through its learning and outreach services.

We welcome schools and community groups back to the Museum or offering outreach sessions. 

Why not book for the next school term or for your community group.

Our loan boxes are also available for hire, £18 for 6 weeks, and will be quarantined in between hires to ensure they are Covid-19 secure.

Online Learning Hub

Our online learning hub is full of digital resources to help people explore the Museum’s learning and outreach services online.

The aim is to make the Museum’s wide-ranging collections available to support home learning and beyond, as well as providing blended learning for schools and informal groups of all ages from badged groups to the WEA and care homes.

The Learning Hub can be accessed from the Museum website’s homepage  www.saffronwaldenmuseum.org or direct www.swmuseumlearning.com

Initially three sessions will be available - Prehistory Hunters, Fantastic Fossils and Adaptions - with more being added in due course. 

Shop Focus

We stock a full range of gifts in the Museum shop all year round, and there are always seasonal special offers and themed products linked to our collections.

Our bespoke jigsaws make a lovely stocking filler...

Unique - Saffron Walden Museum commissioned jigsaw puzzles, inspired by our British Butterfly collection.  These are very different to standard jigsaw puzzles:

Whimsy pieces - Victorian puzzle ‘whimsies’ – this jigsaw has bespoke pieces which reflect the nature of the puzzle itself.

Irregular Pieces - The mini jigsaw puzzles (40 pieces) may be small but that doesn't mean they're easy. Perfect for adults and children to complete together or alone they’re still challenging.

British Made Wooden Classic  - Not only are they made from sustainable wood, which gives a fabulous tactile feeling, but they are cut using lasers. Laser cutting the pieces ensures that each piece fits together perfectly  On sale for just £7.50 each.

Our stationery packs and jigsaws are now available for sale online via the TIC website, here are the links:

Jigsaw: https://www.visitsaffronwalden.gov.uk/product/saffron-walden-museum-british-butterfly-collection-jigsaw/

Stationery Pack: https://www.visitsaffronwalden.gov.uk/product/saffron-walden-museum-stationery-pack/

Fact-finding in Ely 

Carolyn and Jenny attended the Museums East of England meeting at Ely Museum.  It was a great opportunity to find out from their Curator Elie and their staff team about their experience of going thorough a National Lottery Heritage Fund project to re-develop their museum. There museum has recently re-opened following wholescale re-development. 

Thank You Mary!

On the 17th November a small group of staff past and present, volunteers and museum society representatives held a thank you tea party for volunteer Mary Adams (pictured in the centre of the picture). 

Mary has volunteered in our team since 2001, helping with finance admin such as reconciling shop sales and admissions takings. 

Her dedicated volunteering for so many years, week after week has been greatly appreciated. 

Volunteering

We are always looking for new volunteers to join our team on a regular basis.  We would also be delighted to hear from volunteers who are able to provide adhoc ‘cover’ for our regular shift volunteers when they have planned absences such as holidays, hospital appointments, etc.

To find out more about these and ‘Learning and Support’ volunteer opportunities please contact the museum using the details below.