Prince’s Trust work placement at Gressenhall

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the pleasure of exploring and engaging with Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse as part of my work placement for the Prince’s Trust team programme. Having toured museums in the past, I have always been intrigued by the extent of time and effort that must be invested by individuals behind the scenes. It has therefore been very interesting and rewarding to work with a diversity of subdivisions based around the Gressenhall site, including collections, the learning team, those maintaining the farm and front of house.

For example, I have thoroughly enjoyed participating in the categorisation and movement of collected items either displayed in the museum or held in storage. This involved learning about how to safely handle and pack away aged objects, how to enter and update digital item records on the museum’s Modes system and how to draw relevant nuggets of information from original scanned paperwork (such as minutes taken from meetings between the board of guardians back in 1843). In contrast, I also spent a day working down on the nearby farm, where I got the fantastic opportunity to groom one of the Suffolk Punch horses kept onsite and interactively learn about the intricate (and surprisingly mathematical) planning involved in turning soil with a horse-drawn plough.

A display case of workworking tools I helped to process and pack

Horse-drawn ploughing in action

Prior to beginning my placement, I was unaware that the museum supported such a dedicated learning department, so it was educational in itself to join a school party of year 5s and shadow the team as they delivered a day-long event teaching about different aspects of Neolithic Britain. I was certainly impressed with the highly interactive nature of the four planned sessions – from throwing spears as part of a hunting party to engaging in a treasure hunt centred around the museum’s Neolithic exhibits – but also how inclusive the integrated talks were. The children were always encouraged to think for themselves by answering frequently posed questions, rather than simply listen to a wall of Neolithic facts. Later on in my placement, I was able to assist in preparations for a number of upcoming Victorian family Christmas events, setting aside arts and crafts materials for activities focused on making paper chains and peg dolls.

In addition, I also had the opportunity to shadow the front of house team as they supervised the site and carried out maintenance at a time where the workhouse and farm is closed to the public for the winter. This allowed me to learn about many different performed procedures, such as how visiting school groups are accounted for upon arrival and billed or how to correctly test fire and safety systems installed within the collections gallery, workhouse building and farm. I was also lucky enough to visit the Norfolk collections centre located onsite and inspect many of the amazing objects stored inside, such as a euphonicon (19th century upright piano) and the West Runton Mammoth tusk.

My handiwork preparing felt for the Victorian family christmas peg dolls

Admiring Gressenhall’s own version of the Indiana Jones Hangar 51 warehouse

All in all, I think that my experience of the numerous roles operating at Gressenhall has been enhanced by the fact that everybody has been so friendly, willing to demonstrate how they approach their tasks and informative in explaining their perspective with regards to the realistic expectations and difficulties of maintaining an engaging and inviting museum. So to everyone I have spoken with and worked alongside at Gressenhall Farm and workhouse, you’re doing a grand job and I’ve really enjoyed my time spent working here. You have my thanks.

Christopher Cox

 

Curatorial September update

It’s been a little while since our last update but Megan, our Curator and Lauren, our Assistant Curator have been busy! Here’s a little taster of what they’ve been up to:

 

Donations

We are very grateful to receive many offers of items to the museum. One of our most recent donations was this Norfolk County School washbowl. The donor, very kindly travelled up from London to deliver it safely to us. The washbowl has now been accessioned into the museum collection and joins a matching beaker which we already had. Norfolk County School only existed for twenty years so we are very pleased to have two items from it.

Norfolk County School was a public school founded by Joseph Lloyd Brereton to provide education to the sons of farmers and artisans as part of his experiment in County Education. It opened in 1874 and was situated near North Elmham. The school had it’s own railway station (the County School railway station on the Dereham to Fakenham line). Largely due to a decline in pupil numbers the school closed in July 1895.

Collaborate

All year we have been working with local artists and community groups on Collaborate. Over the last few weeks we have seen what they have created and how they have been inspired by the messages and collections on display in our Beers and Brewing exhibition. This week we will be working together to put up a display of their work. It will be on display within the exhibition from Saturday 29th September to Sunday 28th October.

Once upon a time 2019

Even though there are still a few weeks left of the season we have been working on next year’s exhibition. Once upon a Time will explore children’s books. Over the summer holidays we were asking our visitors on site and online what their favourite children’s books are. We also wanted to know if any places or objects at Gressenhall reminded you of a book. Does Cherry Tree Cottage garden remind you of Mr McGregor’s garden in Peter Rabbit? Staff, volunteers and work experience students also got involved! We’ve been collating all the answers and ideas on our pinterest boards and are now thinking about ways we can incorporate these books and ideas into the exhibition.

 

 

 

John Moray-Smith panel

Have you ever walked in to a pub and seen a scene like this? This panel portrays a traditional pub scene unlike we see now. It was created by the Norwich artist, John Moray-Smith in the middle of the twentieth century. This artist’s work appears on the outside of buildings and inside of pubs across Norwich and Norfolk. His work commemorates and celebrates trades and livelihoods from across the city and county.

Little is known about Moray-Smith’s life. Mysterious rumours circulated for years that he was an Italian gypsy who first came to England during the First World War as a Prisoner of War. Known for being eccentric, perhaps this story made sense, however thanks to research by the Norwich Society we now know that this is complete fabrication. Moray-Smith was born in Scotland and later lived in London where he met his wife. The family moved to Norwich in the early 1930s.

Moray-Smith was employed by Norwich brewery Morgan & Co. For twenty years he produced work to decorate the brewery’s pub. Morgan’s brewery was a large brewery based in Norwich and King’s Lynn and owned pubs all over the county. John and Walter Morgan bought Conisford Brewery from Charles and Henry Thompson in 1844. The company took over many other breweries and by 1904 they owned 600 pubs with 80% of them outside of Norwich. In 1961 the company went into liquidation and were taken over by Bullards and Steward and Patteson. Many other breweries suffered the same fate. Big breweries consolidated, lager which was brewed overseas became very popular and brewing in the county rapidly declined. Thankfully, there has been a resurgence of micro-breweries and Norfolk is once again a brewing county.

One of Morgan’s pubs was the Jolly Farmers in King’s Lynn. This panel is one of six which was on display in the pub. They were unveiled on the 25th February 1948 by Sir Robert Bignold, the managing director of the Brewery. Through Moray-Smith’s panels Morgan’s brewery created a theme for this pub and rather appropriately it was farming! The panels in the set portray threshing, harvesting, sheep shearing, a cattle market, a farmyard and this pub scene. In this pub scene we see musical instruments being played, beer drunk from mugs and a dog under the table. The only woman in the scene is behind the bar. The Jolly Farmers pub is now closed like many rural pubs which are closing or are at threat of closure. Now pubs in the county are being saved and run by their communities, hosting knit and knatter groups, running theatre performances and expanding their daytime offer to include coffee and cake.

Originally the panel would have been painted with bright colours, matching the happy scene it portrays. It is darker now and stained brown with tobacco from the many years it was in a smoky pub. Moray-Smith made his panels from wire and plaster. Despite their size and chunky finish these panels are delicate and expensive to conserve. It is wonderful to be able to display one of them within the ‘Beers and Brewing: Norfolk’s Rural Pubs’.

A version of this blog post appeared in the Eastern Daily Press.

Brewing in Norfolk

The Beers and Brewing exhibition explores pubs and brewing in the past and today. We’ve already written blog posts about the historic Steward and Patteson brewery and the modern Kings Arms Pub. This post is about the two modern breweries in the exhibition.

Beeston Brewery

Mark Riches started brewing at Beeston Brewery in November 2006. Today he runs three brews every week. He produces nine different beers that he supplies to pubs. He also bottle beers for selling in local shops and from the brewery direct to customers.

Norfolk Brewhouse

The Norfolk Brewhouse is an award-winning brewery based in North Norfolk run by Rachel and David Holliday since 2012. The brewery’s most well known beers are all named after Norfolk Dialect words for the hare – Moon Gazer, Dew Hopper and Stubble Stag. They also make a gluten free beer, lagers a charity ale Tobi’s Tipple which supports local cancer charity It’s On The Ball.

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Both breweries use brewing water from their own wells. They also use local malting barley supplied by the Crisp Malting Group based in North Norfolk. Thankyou to both breweries for lending items to the Beers and Brewing exhibition.

 

 

Picture Norfolk

The Beers and Brewing: Norfolk’s Rural Pubs exhibition features some wonderful photographs sourced from Picture Norfolk.

Picture Norfolk is a wonderful online database created and run by Norfolk Library & Information Service. Picture Norfolk is features over 20,000 local photographs and includes images from Local Studies Libraries, Norfolk Museums Service, Norfolk Record Office and many private collections.

Bullard’s Anchor Brewery on Westwick Street in Norwich. Photograph from an album held by the Museum of Norwich and image supplied by Picture Norfolk.

Farm workers in the Duck’s Foot pub in Pulham Market at lunchtime. Photograph taken by Peter Lange and supplied by Picture Norfolk.

Ladies darts team at the White Horse Pub in Ashwellthorpe in 1977. Photograph taken by Richard Tilbrook and supplied by Picture Norfolk.

Playing dominoes in a pub at Harleston during the 1950s. Photograph taken by Peter Lange and image supplied by Picture Norfolk.

Playing dominoes in the Malsters Pub in Pulham St Mary during the 1950s. Photograph taken by Peter Lange and supplied by Picture Norfolk.

Search www.picture.norfolk.gov.uk and see what you can find!

Steward and Patteson

Norfolk was home to hundreds of brewers. Many of them are featured in the ‘Beers and Brewing: Norfolk’s Rural Pubs exhibition.’ One of the biggest brewers in Norfolk was Steward and Patteson. Items from the brewery are on display in the exhibition.

In 1793 John Patteson bought the Pockthorpe brewery. In just 40 years the company had bought three more breweries and owned 120 pubs. The company had many name changes and expanded rapidly. In 1895 they owned 498 pubs. In 1961 Steward and Patteson bought half of Morgan’s Brewery adding 200 pubs to their already 1250.

The brewery had their own Cooper’s shop making casks and barrels. These tools are on loan to us from The Museum of Norwich and are on display in the exhibition.

Flag iron used to insert rush between joints on a cask.

Cooper’s plane

Hammer used for shaping metal hoops on barrels.

Circular knife for boring bung holes.

The fantastic book ‘Norwich Pubs and Breweries Past and Present’ by Frances and Michael Holmes (which was invaluable when researching for this exhibition) features memories of working for Steward and Patteson at the Pockthorpe Brewery.

Barry Berwick was a cooper:

“In 1958 I was taken on at Steward and Patteson as an apprentice cooper. I was 15 when I started… My job mainly consisted of repairing barrels. I used to take out broken staves, which are the narrow strips of wood forming part of the sides of a barrel, and put in new ones. It was all done by eye, there were no measurements… When the barrels were returned to the brewery for refilling they were washed. A bloke used to smell them to make sure they were clean. He often found bits of wood inside that he’d take out. He put a big cross on the side of damaged barrels which came over to us in the coopers’ shop.”

After a century of rapid expansion and dominating the Norwich brewery and pub scene, a takeover by Watney Mann meant that the brewery closed in 1970.

“When I joined there were four coopers but it was only about three years later we got the ‘Coopers Journal and saw an article about the London breweries using kegs. We all knew then that the writing was on the wall, although I worked as a cooper until 1970 when the last brew was made at Pockthorpe.”

Matchbox collection

All of these beermats were collected by Richard Brownlow. During the 1950s to 70s his parents ran the Papermakers Arms in Swanton Morley.

They were used to advertise pubs. It’s interesting to look at them now and see all the different pub names! Many of them include the names of the landlord and landlady.

They were also used to advertise other businesses.

And breweries!

 

 

Beermat collection

All of these beermats were collected by Richard Brownlow. During the 1950s to 70s his parents ran the Papermakers Arms in Swanton Morley.

Beermats weren’t just for putting your glass on! They were an important way of advertising different breweries, drinks, local businesses, snacks and cigarettes.

Have you ever seen a mat shaped like a packet of crisps? Or a lightbulb or bottle cap?

There is even a set of mats shaped as puzzle pieces.

There are lots more beermats on display in the Beers and Brewing : Norfolk’s Rural Pubs exhibition.

 

Beermats – coming to a pub near you!

Beermats advertising the ‘Beers and Brewing’ exhibition have been delivered to pubs around the county. Thankyou to our volunteers and staff who offered to take them to their ‘locals’ plus other pubs that they wanted to try! Let us know if you spot any.

Maltings

The perfect combination of sandy soil and salty air means that North Norfolk has the perfect conditions for growing barley. This barley is made into malt for brewing beer, through a process called malting. Norfolk was home to hundreds of maltings and brewers.

These two items are on display in the exhibition Beers and Brewing, on loan from the Museum of Norwich.

Malt barrow. It is missing the front wheel. From the former Stag Maltings, St. Benedict’s Street, Norwich, which were demolished in March 1971. NWHCM : 1971.185.4

 

Watering can used for dampening the malt during fermentation. From the former Stag Maltings, St. Benedict’s Street, Norwich, which were demolished in March 1971. NWHCM : 1971.185.6

The process of malting took place in maltings or malthouses across the county. Traditionally, malt is germinated on the floor. This involves different cycles of wet, dry and heat to produce malt from the barley. Here are some photos from the museum collection which show this work.

Photograph of workers with malt ploughs at Great Ryburgh Maltings. GRSRM : CP.CP3079

 

Photograph of Edgar Hoggett with a malt plough at maltings in Narborough. GRSRM : 2012.32

 

Photograph of workers with malt shovels and forks at Wainford Maltings. GRSRM : CP.CP1471