Visiting the Museum!

Our standard opening hours are:

Wednesday-Saturday 10-5pm

Sundays & Bank Holidays 2-5pm

Closed Mondays (apart from bank holidays)

Tuesdays are reserved for pre-booked group visits by schools and other parties in term time. 

www.saffronwaldenmuseum.org

Object of the Month

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

This month we’re celebrating the Lost Language of Nature project, with repair work to this alpine swift. This bird has been cleaned and had its base refreshed to help preserve it for future exhibitions, and will be on temporary display in the Museum throughout October. Alpine swifts spend the warmer months around the Mediterranean Sea and further east, or in southern Africa, and spend the cooler months in parts of east and west Africa. They are related to the common swifts we see in Britain but are noticeably bigger.

Old beliefs about swifts said that they had no feet, and the scientific name of the common swift and related birds including the alpine swift and hummingbirds, even comes from the Ancient Greek for ‘without feet’.

Saffron Walden Museum wants to hear your stories about wildlife and nature in your life, or that you know from parents or grandparents to help create more interesting, relevant and diverse displays in the future.

Head to our website for more information or pick up a postcard in the Museum to join in.

Saffron Walden Museum ©

We need you!

Help with the Lost Language of Nature Project

October is the final month of our exhibition The Lost Language of Nature.

Learn the wonderful tales and beliefs for some of the most familiar or unusual birds around the world – and share your stories with us!

Does your family have a funny pet name for a certain animal?

Do you know any old stories or nursery rhymes about an animal, plant or the local area?

Write them down or draw a picture on one of our postcards and help us make more interesting and relevant exhibitions in the future.

Bone Black: 

a brief history of colours 

Sat 12 Nov – Sun 19 March 2022     

An exhibition exploring the making, meaning and use of colours from prehistory to the present day.

Object in Focus: Horniman Museum

Runs until 4 November

Objects in Focus is a loans programme run by the Horniman Museum in London, funded by Arts Council England, which aims to improve access to their collections and strengthen their partnerships with other museums and cultural organisations, by offering a range of objects for loan free of charge.

The Museum has loaned some tattoo design examples from the Horniman Museum under this Objects in Focus scheme.  These tattoo models from Sarawak, Borneo date to the 19^th century. 

The display (in the "Your Stories" section of the museum) also features a tattoo implement from Fiji, made from a bone plate with a bamboo handle, which has been decorated with plaited coconut fibre.  It was collected in Viti Levu, Fiji, Oceania Polynesia in 1876.

(Pictured left): Kayan tattoo model, Horniman Museum ©

October Half Term Activities 

(30 min sessions between 10.20am-12.50pm or between 2pm-3.10pm)

25 Oct : Make a Flappy Owl

£2.40 per child

Book via the Art Tickets website.   

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

Ghost Hunters!

27 Oct : Museum at Night 6-7.30pm

Torchlight hunt around the museum for ghosts, solve the riddles in your spooky    activity pack. £2.40 per bag. 

Rare plant returns

Few-flowered fumitory was identified in a museum flower bed back in June during a botanical survey of the Museum and Castle site.

This plant is classed as ‘vulnerable’ by the conservation charity Plantlife and is a chalk-soil specialist restricted to suitable areas of eastern and southern England.

The feathery leaves in the photo show a new seedling of the plant which we hope will survive the winter or have a very sudden growth spurt to flower and set seed again before winter.

A New Season

A kind donation of autumn cyclamen has given us two flowering pots to greet visitors, either side of the main entrance.

The foliage has started to fill out after the first week or two, including some nasturtium seeds which germinated from compost taken from another tub. Freshly planted spring bulbs, left over from last year’s planting of grape hyacinth and Anemone blanda have already started to sprout next to the ramp up to the museum entrance.

Hopefully they will flower in spring and join the bluebells which seem to survive there year after year. The wooden planter for ‘edibles’ is also being refreshed with some salvaged strawberry plantlets. By the time you read this, there should also be some small beetroot plants which will hopefully overwinter and come on for next spring.

Collections on the Move

On Monday 26 September removal company Eezeemovers, helped us to move our costume and textile collection stored at the museum to our external store on the Shire Hill industrial estate.

The museum costume store was essentially an overgrown walk-in cupboard, but you can see from this image of all the boxes once they'd been moved to Shire Hill (pictured left), it must have been a bit of a tardis and actually fitted in quite a few boxes!

It took 4 hours to move everything out of the museum's costume store and a further 2 hours to unpack it out of the van and get it all onto the racks at Shire Hill!

This is the start of work to improve the storage conditions for these collections. They will gradually be repacked, re-organised, researched and documented.  We hope to be able to hang the long garments on padded hangers in calico bags eventually, so they will no longer have to be folded in boxes, which can over time cause damage to them.

If you or anyone you know is skilled at sewing by hand or at using a sewing machine and could spare us some time. It would be great if we could get some volunteers to help make up calico bags with velcro fastenings and sew padding onto wooden hangers for this project.

Contact the Museum by email at museum@uttlesford.gov.uk or ring 01799 510333 and use the reference Costume Project if you would like to be involved. 

Egyptian items on loan

a figure of Bastet the cat god and two Horus (falcon) figures, which are usually on display in the museum's Egyptian gallery, have been lent to Epping Forrest District Museum for their current special temporary exhibition "Animal Mummies," which started in mid September and runs until December. 

Pargetting Researcher 

Anna Kettle has begun a joint placement here at the Museum and with SPAB (the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings). She is documenting and researching all the instances of pargeting on buildings in the town.

Pargeting is the ornamentation of plastered and rendered building facades that would otherwise be smooth, lined-out or roughcast.

Wooden stamps and combs were often used to render the designs in the wet plaster. The finished effect is very distinctive and still regularly seen in Saffron Walden and the surrounding villages. 

We expect that small displays and activities relating to this researcher project will be held at the museum and in the town early next year as the project progresses. Stay tuned to find out more about these and more about Anna's project over the coming months. 

Project Update:

Greater in Spirit,

Larger in Outlook

Epping Forest District Museum in Waltham Abbey and Saffron Walden Museum have received an Arts Council National Lottery project grant of £100,000 to work in partnership on their world culture collections.

The aim of the project is to ensure the museums and their collections reflect their diverse communities by working directly with cultural groups to research different objects and tell their stories.

The project’s title, ‘Greater in Spirit, Larger in Outlook’ is inspired by Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. Museum staff will work with relevant community groups including the Ethiopian History Society, to explore, explain and exhibit the collection leading to a new permanent display at Epping Forest District Museum, due to be completed by the end of 2022.

The project has begun to work with relevant community and cultural groups linked to the world cultures collections in preparation for the major temporary exhibition in 2023 at Epping Forest Museum for this project. 

Alice Lodge, has now been employed in the role of Collections Connector on the project and is splitting her time between both museums. On Fridays, you will see her researching in the World Cultures gallery here. 

For more about the project: https://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/museum-world-culture-collections-project/

(pictured left): Image of Saffron Walden Museum's world cultures gallery. 

Learning & Outreach

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

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

Why not book in your school or community group.

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

Shop Focus 

This month the focus is on spooky Halloween gifts which link to our October half-term events Flappy Owls and the Museums at Night: Ghost Tour. 

On sale in the shop we have plush Nature Buddies cats & owls priced at just £3.50 each. Gooey slime powder priced at £1.99 and Museum branded torches on sale at just £3 each.

Staff Garden Party

On Friday 23 September, UDC council staff, museum volunteers and museum society officers & board members were invited to attend a council organised garden party at the Museum.

Attendees visited the museum and took on the Utterly Uttlesford quiz and inspired by a coronation poster from 1863 on display in the Museum, had a go at gurning through a horse collar, the selfies were a picture! 

Uttlesford District Council put on refreshments and wellbeing stalls for the garden party event.  It was a lovely day for everyone to get together and catch up. 

Long Service "Silver Owl" Awards for our Valued Volunteers

We are delighted to announce that, on Thursday 10 November, three Saffron Walden Museum volunteers - who have each been volunteering with us for 25 years or more – will be awarded a certificate and Silver Owl badge at the SHARE Museums East 2022 conference in Ely.  They are:

June Baker

In addition to her regular shifts on the ‘Front of House’ Welcome Desk, June also covers occasional Sundays and Volunteer desk duties in the evenings at the ‘Museum at Night’ events (where she can be seen wearing a witch’s hat and mauve hair!). 

She has taken on responsibility for inducting and mentoring new recruits, ensuring that ‘Team Saffron Walden Museum’ consistently deliver excellent customer service at the Welcome Desk.

June is committed to contributing towards the museum’s exhibition programme. She has loaned personal items and stories for many special exhibitions, including accessories for Completing the Look: 300 Years of Fashion Accessories, the Uttlesford: A Community of Collectors temporary exhibition, the National Volunteer week displays and most recently royal memorabilia for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.

Jenny Day

In her capacity as Welcome volunteer, Jenny is the ‘Face of the Museum’ being the first impression a visitor gets either in person or on the telephone.

Jenny gives a friendly welcome to visitors; sells tickets and merchandise and provides information about the Museum. 

As well as the length of service, Jenny has demonstrated amazing commitment, by kindly covering double shifts on the ‘Front of House’ Welcome Desk on a fortnightly basis and coming in to cover other volunteers shifts when they are unable to attend the Museum, even when she herself was struggling with a poorly leg!

Ann Holloway

Over the years Ann has supported the museum in many ways, highlights include:

Ann took part in our co-curated community exhibition, Uttlesford: A Community of Collectors, working with curatorial staff to create a display of her collection of Pestle and Mortars.

In the absence of a Learning Officer at the Museum (prior to Charlotte being in post), Ann kindly dressed as ‘Mistress Ann’ bringing in her own collection of Tudor artefacts and conducted hands-on history activities with the school children. This really made a positive difference to the school visits and we received wonderful letters of thanks from the school teachers and children.

We extend our congratulations and grateful thanks to them all.

Volunteering at the Museum

Would you like to join our team?

We are always looking for additional new volunteers to join our welcome desk team on a regular or adhoc basis. 

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

Pictured left: Natalie meeting and greeting visitors on the Welcome desk.