What's on at Wakefield Museums

The next six months is an exciting time for Wakefield Museums.  With the opening of Castleford Forum Museum in Autumn, a programme of fascinating exhibitions and lots of special events and activties, there is sure to be something that appeals to everyone.

To find out about what is on at Wakefield Museum, Pontefract Museum and Castleford Forum Museum see our brand new Events & Exhibitions leaflet by clicking on this link:

Events and Exhibitions Oct 2013 - March 2014


Some highlights of the programme include:

The opening of Castleford Forum Library & Museum

The new Castleford Forum Library and Museum is scheduled to open autumn 2013.

The museum invites visitors to follow the history of Castleford from the Bronze Age to the modern day. Discover why the Castleford area was a great and important meeting place for Bronze Age people. View a unique and special Iron Age chariot. See objects from Castleford’s time as an important Roman town. Not forgetting marbles, rugby, mining and Rugby!

The Men in the Mirror exhibition at Wakefield Museum

 26 October 2013 - 31 May 2014

What do handlebars, Mexicans, pencils and toothbrushes all have in common? They are all names of moustache styles. Follow the changing face of male grooming in this hirsute exhibition.

The Great War Inspires at Pontefract Museum

25 January 2013 - 30 August 2014

To commemorate 100 years since the outbreak of World War 1 there will be display of community artwork inspired by objects in the museum collection from this period.

WW1 Handkerchief from the museum collections

Fabulous Forties Vintage event at Wakefield Museum

Wednesday 6 November, 5pm to 7.30pm

Join us for a wartime vintage evening with forties fashion and music.

 

Florence family event at Pontefract Museum

Wednesday 19 February, 11.00am - 2.00pm.

Did you know that Florence Nightingale almost married a man from Pontefract? Learn about the famous nurse and make a fabulous lamp to take home.

 

To be kept up to date with Events and Exhibitions join our e-mailing list, email us.

Family Arts Festival comes to Wakefield!

October Half Term is creeping up on us already.  This year we are taking part in the Family Arts Festival  and The Big Draw to put on a range of fun activities:

Fabulous Frames

Inspired by the amazing artworks on display, we will be making some fantastic picture frames for you to show off your own artwork.

Suitable for families with children aged 3-12

11am - 2pm

Pontefract Museum

Drop in event – no need to book

Tuesday 29^th October

Sandal C’ART’stle

Using the collections of Wakefield Archives and Wakefield Museums come and join us in creating a shield design.  Looking at the symbolism of heraldry this drop-in session gives children the chance to draw on fabric and sketch designs to best describe who they are.

Suitable for families with children aged 4-12

11am – 3pm

Wakefield Museum Learning Zone (next to the Children's Library)

Drop in event – no need to book

Wednesday 30^th October

Beastly Bats & Witches’ Hats

Celebrate Halloween with us, as we learn about some traditional Halloween beliefs and make make some creepy crafts to take home!

Suitable for families with children aged 6-12

11am - 12:30pm or 1:30 - 3pm

Wakefield Museum

Booking essential as places are limited on 01924 302700 or email.

Thursday 31^st October

Little People, Big Draw 2013

Calling our younger visitors to join us for a session of drawing in unusual ways and of strange things.  Please wear clothes you do not mind getting a bit dirty!

Suitable for families with children aged 2 - 5

10:30am – 11:30am or 1:30pm – 2:30pm

Wakefield Museum and Learning Zone

Booking essential as places are limited on 01924 302700 or email.

Friday 1^st November

Please email if you would like to be added to our mailing list and be the first to hear of our future events!

Scissors, paper, stone

Wakefield Museums recently secured funding from Arts Council England to commission an artist to create an installation using museum objects in an innovative and exciting way in a special showcase in Wakefield One – the building in which Wakefield Museum is based. 

Local artist Rachel Sim will be using 5 stone heads from the museum's collections in a piece called ‘Scissors Paper Stone’.  Rachel will explore the themes of renewal, reinvention and the passing of time in Wakefield.  She will create a series of sketchbook drawings of the architecture, patterns and textures of Wakefield.  These will inspire structures and prints that will be formed into a 3D installation -a cardboard city. The stone heads (from buildings in Wakefield) will then be placed on plinths within the cardboard city, allowing the viewer to peak through and spot them. The installation will be in place from 23 November.

In the meantime come along to Wakefield Museum today, 
25 September 5pm -7.30pm and have a go at printmaking with Rachel Sim. Drop in and take part in creating a large scale relief print of Wakefield or make images to take home with you. This event is suitable for everyone, children and adults, and is free. 

This event is part of the Wakefield Artwalk. 

Drop in at any time between 5pm and 7.30pm

Thanks to Rachel for this guest blog post:

Last week I met up with John Whitaker, a curator, and we paid a visit to Wakefield museum storeroom.

As with many museums only a small selection of the collection can be displayed due to lack of space. The Warehouse in a secret location holds a huge selection of Wakefield’s history. Objects that have been collected, found and donated fill up this space.

The shelves are stacked full of intriguing objects and artefacts where every item is carefully numbered and archived. The collection ranges from a giant old fire engine to piles of boxes holding all sorts of important little bits and pieces.

The main reason for my visit was to examine the 5 keystones to be shown as part of the installation - Scissors Paper Stone, which I am currently working on with Wakefield Museum and Council. This installation will be on show from Mid November.

After John very carefully removed these from the shelf (which is second nature to him but looked terrifying to me) we measured and detailed the stone heads and I had the opportunity to take some photos for reference.

 

The heads have some lovely details carved onto them including a rose, pearls and buttons for the females and two beards, one straight and one curly for the gents.

The details of where these stone heads originated is unknown but it is likely that they were once part of a building on the Westgate that was torn down. These stone heads are the remains.

As part of the project I have recently been taking photos and exploring the details of Wakefield's varied architecture. In my research I am looking at past and present buildings and have started to make drawings and prints, which I feel reflect the city.

I will be running a drop in workshop as part of the Wakefield Artwalk where anyone is very welcome to join me in looking at the city through doing some basic relief printmaking.

A Bronze Age pot from 4,000 years ago

An Early Bronze Age pot which could be up to 4,000 years old has been studied this week at Wakefield Museum by a visiting researcher from Bradford University. Debbie Hallam is researching Pygmy Cups from the north of England as an MPhil topic.  So far over 200 vessels have been tracked down,  and although cups from North and East Yorkshire form a large part of the Northern assemblage, examples from industrialised areas are much rarer and therefore of great interest.

These enigmatic small cups were made as funerary vessels to accompany the body in the cremation pyre and were recovered after the funeral rite and placed in a round barrow or flat grave with the collected cremated remains. In many cases they are found in association with larger urns known as Collared Urns or Food Vessels or in rich graves along with prestige items such as jet, amber or bronze knives.  Although their use is not generally well understood, they have been referred to as ‘incense cups’ because they have small holes drilled in the side, apparently to allow airflow to burn something like incense at funerals. In the Northern collection many of the cups do not have any holes or perforations and this challenges their use as incense burners.

By researching the larger Northern collection as a whole, the study hopes to provide new information about the date and purpose of these pots. Debbie said “most cups are extremely individual, however the Mitchell Laithes cup has some form and decorative similarities to one from Wensleydale, and if this proves to be evidence of an individual craftsman then this will be very exciting, particularly given the distance between the two find sites”.

Wakefield Museum’s incense cup was found during an archaeological excavation at Ossett Sewage Works at Mitchell Laithes  in 2007. In the Bronze Age a barrow was built on the site, which contained 3 cremations, one of which contained this pot. These were carbon dated to 1920-1680 BC. It is on display in Wakefield Museum.

We were also able to give Debbie new information on another incense cup found at Oulton in 1873, the location of which is not known. As a sketch was published in J W Walker’s History of Wakefield’ she may be able to identify it if it survives unlabelled in a museum collection. 

Meet the Roman Messenger!

Today we have been working on a new interactive video game for Castleford Forum Museum which uses the objects on display to test your knowledge of the Romans!

The new game is called 'The Roman Messenger' and involves answering multiple choice questions to reach a goal - some are trickier than others. Would you be able to guess what this is for?

Mystery Roman object - would your 'Roman Messenger' be able to guess what it was for?

The game has already proved itself popular with the museums team as we tested out the questions.  It's amazing how competitive grown adults can get! We are rather relieved that the Learning Officers all scored full marks - so you can rest easy that family workshops and schools visits to the new museum will be in capable hands!

The new game will be available on a screen when Castleford Forum Museum opens later this year - do come in and give it a go!

Casing up Castleford

Progress at Castleford Forum Museum is rapidly moving forward.

We have just taken delivery of the specialist museum cases, which look amazing in the new space. 



This is the case for the Iron Age chariot

The cases are designed to keep museum objects safe, secure and in the perfect environment (with the right temperature and humidity).  Trays for materials to control the humidity are built into the cases.



In built LED lighting is not only energy efficient but also is cool to protect the objects.

This case is built into a museum structure - the hole next to it will be filled with a screen to show films of Castleford.

You can see here that there is stonework waiting to be installed.

During manufacture and installation of the cases, strong smelling adhesives and cleaning products are used.  There has to be a 'gassing-off' period where the cases are left open for some time, before the objects are installed.








All that is left to do now is fit the graphics, mount the objects, install the objects, prepare the object captions, finish off the structures, fit the AV, sort out the interactive elements.....



What a packed summer!

Over the last 6 weeks we have been delivering summer holiday family workshops.

From making butter at Sandal Castle, to squeezing oranges at Wakefield Museum (with our under 5 visitors) to looking at what amazing, curious and even eccentric people have come from the district - our teams have provided activities to keep our younger visitors busy over the summer months.

Family workshops have given us the chance to delve into the wonderful past events that make Wakefield the city it is today.  Providing a mix of interesting facts with hands on activities has allowed children to connect with the past in fun and varied ways.

As well as booked sessions, there were drop-in activities at both castles and museums, giving families the opportunity to create leather bookmarks, design a coat of arms or take part in a holiday trail.  

There's more to come! 

We are already looking ahead and planning sessions for the October half term, so if you would like to be added to the family activities mailing list please send us your e-mail address.

Wakefield Museum provides children’s activity sheets and digital trails on a daily basis for families to enjoy.  Just ask a member of the museums front of house staff for more information.