Imagine... Castleford Forum Library and Museum

This is the top floor of the new Castleford Forum Library and Museum, it may not look special yet but imagine….

A brave warrior being immortalised in a grand chariot burial

A roman soldier in full armour, making his way to Castleford and missing the home cooking of Rome

The heat of a glass works – hot enough to melt the soles of your shoes

The anguish of a community ripped apart by closing mines, over time finding pride and strength in their town.

The roar of a crowd as Castleford beat Huddersfield 11 – 8 in the Rugby League Cup 1935

The great and good of Castleford in their fancy frocks playing marbles on a ‘Reet Night aht’

These are some of the stories you will encounter at the new Castleford Museum opening later this year; Imagine….

All in a flap - and the winner is...

The votes have been cast.  The scores have been counted.  We have a winner!

Thank you for voting on your favourite flapper dress! 

Come to Wakefield Museum on Wednesday 31 July (5-7pm) to see all 3 dresses, and see which one has gone on display along with carefully chosen accessories.

To celebrate the change in our displays, we are going all 1920s for the evening, and everyone is invited to come and get into the spirit!

Picture taken from a 1920s birthday card in the museum collection

Inspired by three gorgeous 1920s flapper dresses in our collections this event is bound to be hotsy- totsy!

The joint will be swinging, with a Charleston inspired Zumba, a fascinator workshop, bow-tie tying demonstrations, a display of vintage inspired headpieces, and much more.

So don’t be a sap, pop on your glad rags and head on down for a swell time.

Flapper Dresses
The public has been casting votes as to which 1920s flapper dress should go on display at Wakefield Museum.  For tonight only all three dress will be displayed, with our social history curator on hand to talk about the dresses and the museum collections.
 

Fabulous Fascinators

Join in with a drop in workshop to make a 1920s inspired hair fascinator.  Plus bow tie tying demonstrations for the gentlemen!

Milliner extraordinaire

Knottingley-based milliner, Deborah Walton will be showing some 1920s-inspired hats in her collection, and will be available for hat advice!

Photo Credit: Jessie Leong Photography

Charleston Zumba
Get with the swing of things with a taster session of Charleston Zumba from Sports and Active Lifestyles.  Sessions are at 6.30 and 7.00pm.  Sports gear not necessary!

A 1920s card in the museum collection

The Great Gatsby

“Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!”  F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Need some literary inspiration…take a look at some of the classic novels written during this period in a novel book display from Wakefield Libraries.

Mocktails @ Create Café

Indulge yourself with a 1920s style mocktail at Create Café.  Create café will also be offering a special menu for the evening.  Charges apply.

Life in the 1320s!
Plus visit our temporary exhibition Food For All Seasons to meet our infamous peasant Alice Gerbod and find out what life was like in the 1320s!

All events are free unless otherwise stated.

Drop in to Wakefield Museum between 5.00pm & 7.30pm.

Some fabulous drawings!

Last week we received a lovely package in the post...

In early June a group of pupils from Silcoates School visited Sandal Castle as part of their school project work.  Pupils were taken around the castle site by one of the Museums' Learning  Officers and told the history of the site along with information about the castle's surviving features.

Pupils asked thoughtful questions to further their understanding and worked on site collating evidence for their project work.

Along with this lovely letter, were some pupils' drawings, and they were all so fantastic, we had to share a few!

What a lovely letter to receive!

What we can remember about our trip to Sandal Castle:

A pupil's drawing of Sandal Castle done back at school - all the features are there!

This picture shows an aerial view of Sandal Castle, showing impressive visualisation skills!

We love this image of a knight at the Battle of Wakefield!

Castleford's new museum!

Castleford’s eagerly awaited new library and museum, is well underway.

The museum team is working hard on the internal fit out design for the third floor museum space.

Displays will include:

• The importance of Bronze Age Castleford

• A unique and fascinating Iron Age burial chariot

• Objects from Roman Castleford (or Lagentium as it was known then), including a leather sandal, a milestone and an ear pick!

• How mining has shaped the community

• A stunning display of Castleford made glass and ceramics

• Plus rugby, marbles and not forgetting Henry Moore.

There will also be 4 very special community cases, offering the opportunity to the people of Castleford to make their own museum displays.

This plan shows the basic layout of the new museum space. The display cases on the left hand side will consist of roman stonework pieces.



This plan shows the central display island that will feature a large screen showing historic film from the area.

As we get closer to the scheduled opening in autumn this year watch this space for more behind the scenes updates…

Extraordinary Ordinary

Extraordinary Ordinary – pit village life by Jack Hulme

Two very different visions of manliness!

A stunning new exhibition at Pontefract Museum celebrates the touching and captivating photographs by Jack Hulme.

Jack Hulme’s photographs of the pit village of Fryston, on the outskirts of Castleford, are a fascinating, unique and revealing record of a mining community in the mid twentieth century.  He was born in the village but, after an injury, was unable to work as a miner.

When his wife bought him a Leica camera he became the village photographer, and it is for his black and white images that he is now remembered. The enduring value of his images is that he captured the ordinary – domestic chores, playing in the street, the daily grind.

From the attitude of his subjects towards him, you can see he was part of the life he was documenting. From the National Strike to the Miners’ Strike he witnessed the passing of the industrial age in Yorkshire.

Can you imagine doing this now?

Fanny Morgan and her sister

Before Health and Safety went mad!

Before computer games took over!

Some of what he photographed is the same today but there are big differences. Change is sometimes most obvious to people who haven’t lived through it. Therefore the Museum asked students at Pontefract New College for their reactions to the images in this exhibition.

Photography is an incredibly popular subject at New College. The A-level students experience both the traditional dark room photography Jack Hulme would have recognised as well as modern digital manipulation. They have researched some of these photographs and written their own personal responses. These captions next to the originals give new perspectives on this powerful record.

Pontefract Museum, Salter Row, Pontefract, WF8 1BA, 01977 722740

Opening Times: Mon – Fri 10.00am – 4.30pm, Sat 10.30am – 4.30pm

Free Admission

The mould triumphed!

On Wednesday this week Wakefield Museum had a fascinating talk from Ivan Day, food historian.  Ivan informed and entertained visitors on a talk entitled The Triumph of the Mould as part of the You Are What You Ate project funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Original moulds from Ivan's personal collection were shown to the audience along with explanations as to how they were used and what food types would have been moulded within.

One highlight of the evening was the display of specially made deserts all of which were spectacular not only in design but in behaviour!

From jelly to cheese and biscuit to flummery and even ice cream moulds - the array and style of food preparation in the past leaves has left just a shadow of influence on modern foods.

It is a cameo brooch? No, it's a jelly/flummery!  Made in an original 18th century mould

Another 18th century flummery

The wobble on this steeple flummery was astounding!  How could a footman presenting this to table keep a straight face?

Beautifully handcarved sugar walnut moulds - put the 2 halves together and hide inside some sweets or a motto!

Amazingly detailed moulds from Ivan's collection

Working with other local museums

Our staff have met up with some other museums in Wakefield to help out, share ideas and develop projects.

Curator John Whitaker and Local Studies Librarian Claire Pickering made a trip down to The Hepworth Wakefield to help them find out more about a mill building they are opening as a new exhibition space this summer.  The ground floor of the building on Wakefield waterfront which will be transformed into a gallery has a long history.

 

By looking through historic maps in the Local Studies Library we learned that the building (or at least versions of it) has been in use for at least 200 years. In the in the 1820s it is listed as Tootal's warehouse. Tootal was a corn factor (someone who traded in corn rather than produced it) so it probably stored corn. It became part of the Victorian Rutland Mills complex and was used in textile manufacture and was occupied by Patons and Baldwins from the 1920s. Textile firm Caddies Wainwrights took it over in the 1970s and it was part of the Arts Mill in the 1990s before becoming part of a major Waterfront Redevelopment scheme from 1997.  The Local Studies library has a wealth of information about Wakefield's buildings and businesses.



Local Studies Librarian Claire Pickering explores trade directories with Hepworth's Head of Communications and Marketing Hollie Latham

Cara Sutherland, the new curator at the Museum of Mental Health came to see us last week too. The museum, formally known as the Stephan Beaumont Museum  is currently being redeveloped and reorganised . The museum uses objects from Wakefield's West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, also known as Stanley Royd Hospital to explore our changing attitudes and treatments of mental illness. The collections, which include a padded cell, are very important and many objects were salvaged from the site before it was demolished and converted into apartments. Cara is very keen to get to grips the fantastic collections they have and get the museum refurbished and reopened.

Cara Sutherland next to Wakefield Museum's improving lives case which displays a sampler made by a patient at the asylum and a whistle used by one of its nurses.