Free adult talks and events in May

Free talks and events for adults this month (the next on Thursday 16th!). For more details, visit the project website. 

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Anatomy of a display 2 - Tudor Wakefield

Objects: Timber beams from various city centre buildings demolished in the 1960s

History: These buildings represent a golden age in Wakefield. When the selling and finishing of raw wool in the 1500s and early 1600s made Wakefield merchants very rich. The money they made was spent on fancy, decorated homes and shops. Timber from the out wood (Outwood), cut into beams to make a frame was the common architectural fashion of the Tudors. Most were demolished in the 1960s and the museum looks after some of the remains.

The Golden Cock Inn on Westgate, just before it was demolished

Display style: Even though they are very important the beams are not easy to display. They are very large and the carvings are often incomplete (a fascinating post featuring a knight is unfortunately missing his face). We worked with local historian Peter Brears to reveal how they looked when they were still parts of buildings. Peter spent his youth drawing many of the buildings in the late 1950s before they were pulled down. We combined his illustrations with our beams to create a 3D sketchbook style to explore the remains, what they used to look like and a flavour of what Wakefield was like 500 years ago.

This is what we did…..



The carved knight post

The knight post with a face as drawn by Peter Brears

 

One of the beams from the Golden Cock Inn cared for by Wakefield Museum

Peter Brears' drawing of the Golden Cock Inn

An early version of the display before the position of the museum walls were decided

Graphic design of how the pictures and beams might look together. We used a textured wallpaper graphic to make it look like the wall was a large notebook page.



Computer generated model of the display

The final display...come and see it!




May Half Term Holiday Activities

With the Spring Bank school holidays getting ever closer it’s time to start thinking about organising those trips out with the kids. So why not take a look at all that the museums and castles have to offer with our free family workshops. 

Places go fast so book early!

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And our fame spreads...

From the Wellcome Trust Blog this week:

Exhibition planning for beginners: from idea to execution

30 Apr, 2013

tags: Exhibitions, Food, History

by Wellcome Trust

Food for all seasons poster

The idea of running an exhibition in association with a public engagement grant is probably quite a common thing to come up with. Actually planning and launching one is much more difficult. Iona Mcleery offers her experience.

It all starts with a plain white box: four walls and a floor…

There are numerous questions to answer when coming up with a small exhibition to accompany your project: where is it to go, what objects and images can be displayed, and most importantly what is the key message to be transmitted through the exhibition: why do it in the first place?

For You Are What You Ate: Food Lessons From the Past, we answered these questions with the help of the experienced cultural officers on the project team from Wakefield Council’s museum service in West Yorkshire.

Click here to read the whole story!

Wakefield gets ready for Museums at Night!

To celebrate Museums at Night, Wakefield Museum is planning two events on Friday 17th May

For families:

Come and meet St George!

Museum at Knight!
Come and hear our Knight tell the tale of George and the Dragon as you have never heard it before!

Interactive storytelling and workshops for children aged 3– 12 years old.

Fancy Dress encouraged, so come on all you budding princesses, knights (and dragons!)

The Knight will be running the session twice: 6 - 6:30pm and 7 - 7:30pm - starting in the Children’s Library and followed by a museum trail and craft activity.

Booking is essential on 01924 302700 or e-mail 

For adults:

Flatulence and Phlegm: cooking with herbs and salad in seventeenth century England

A fun food talk (with tastings) with the wonderfully entertaining Annie Gray!

Annie Gray will deliver a fun and informative talk (with food tastings) at Wakefield Museum, where you will find out more about cooking in seventeenth century England. During our last chat with Annie, there was a suggestion of Tarragon Cream being on the menu, so don't come expecting just a boring lettuce leaf to try!

This event is free and open to anyone over 18 (starting at 6pm prompt). Booking is essential. Call  (0113) 343 1910 or email to book.

A Seventeenth Century Salad

A Meat Melon!

Annie Gray is an independent historian who works as a researcher, as a costumed interpreter and a consultant to historic sites looking to maximise the potential of their kitchens and dining areas.  
She pops up on TV regularly - recently seen cooking with the Hairy Bikers!

See the events tab at the top of this page for more!

Roman Gems from Castleford

Over the years, excavations at Castleford have produced some real gems. Ian Marshman a PhD student from the School of Archaeology & Ancient History at the University of Leicester recently came to examine 6 Roman engraved gemstones from the site. Gems like these were worn in finger rings and used to seal important documents and provisions, and were highly valued objects to the people who wore them. The stones themselves would have travelled thousands of miles to end up in Castleford, with some coming from as far away as India and Sri Lanka.

These 6 gems will form part of Ian’s survey of these objects from right across Roman Britain, whose total at present stands at well over 1,900 artefacts! He hopes to be able to study the way people chose different images for their seals in different parts of the Roman province, and how this might have changed across time. Every gem was someone’s personal seal, and as such they can tell us a lot about the ancient people who owned them.

Two of the Castleford gems have engravings unique in Roman Britain. The first is a red jasper engraved with the image of a hunting dog seizing its quarry (possibly a hare, but this part of the gem is chipped). Hunting was a popular pastime for wealthy people in the Roman period, and an image of a fine hound like this would have highlighted its owner’s interest in this prestige activity. The second gem still remains in its silver ring and is engraved with the image of a Roman style lamp. Lamps like this were not very common in Roman Britain, because they required imported olive oil for fuel. It is possible that this ring came from the Mediterranean region where such lamps were commonplace, and where it would have been understood as a symbol of hope.

Castleford's Roman gems.  See if you can spot any of these tiny objects on display in The Forum when it opens later this year

The other Castleford gems are no less interesting. One shows a parrot, a bird which originated, like some of the gems, in far off India. The Roman’s associated parrots with Bacchus, the god of wine, but they were also kept as exotic pets by the wealthy. Another gem, a pale blue chalcedony, shows the king of the gods, Jupiter. The only glass ‘gem’ from Castleford is also interesting for it is moulded with a crude image of a warship full of soldiers carrying shields…did this depict the invasion of Britain back in AD 43? Perhaps the best of the gems so far uncovered at Castleford shows a Satyr (a creature part man-part goat) using a bunch of grapes to tease a dog, who leaps up to try to devour them. This playful and naturalistic scene is incredibly finely cut on a carnelian gem less than 1 cm across. Tiny gems like these remind us of the great skill of craftsmen in the Roman period, and provide us with a tangible link with the ancient people who wore them on their fingers everyday.

Siren - or artist's muse?

Two 2,000 year old stone carvings of mythical siren figures (a mixture of woman and bird), from  excavations in Roman Castleford 1974-83 have been the subject of an unusual request recently. They have inspired Castleford-born art student Mikey Cook, to take casts of them, which will then feature in his final year show at Glasgow School of Art.


These Roman magnesian limestone carvings (you can just make out a pair of bird's legs and hands holding musical pipes) have inspired the work

Artist, Mikey Cook, made silicone moulds from the sirens, to take back to Glasgow and cast in a polyurethane foam for his work.

Mikey creates casts of the Roman sirens

One of our more unusual requests, but fascinating to witness!  

The original siren statues will be on display in The Forum, Castleford, when it opens this autumn.