St Agnes Museum

With Liz Thompson unable to accompany her, Sue Morris kindly joined Carol Morgan to take the Museum’s World War II workshop to Year 3 of Mount Hawke Academy on 17 April.

On 11 April we were delighted to welcome members of St Agnes Parish Council, including its Chairman, to the Museum for a private visit.  Members were enthusiastic about recent improvements and tried out the new touchscreen.  Our Chairman, Roger Radcliffe, explained to Councillors, who are the Museum’s landlords, the extent of building improvements undertaken by the Museum Trust which he calculated had cost £150,000 to date.  He stressed that the Museum’s collection contained items from the whole Parish, not just from St Agnes.

We’ve dipped into our New Purchases Fund to buy a leather-bound Cost Book for Trevaunance Mine, near Higher Bal on the edge of St Agnes. The entries date from 1879 when the mine was owned by the powerful Enys family. It’s a welcome addition to our mining-related artefacts.

The Argonauts by Enraght-Moony

Thanks to several of our Members, we’ve recently discovered something of a largely forgotten Irish-born painter, Robert James Enraght-Moony, 1879-1946, who lived and had a studio in central Mount Hawke from 1927 to 1938.

Winter coffee morning

Our Spring Coffee Morning will be held in the Church Hall on Saturday 31 March. We would love to see you there if possible.

We will have a hard task to follow the amazing success of our Christmas Coffee Morning held on 10 December when, despite many other attractions in our busy village that morning, we raised a staggering £405 for Museum funds.

Local members may have heard our Chairman, Roger Radcliffe, on Radio Cornwall on Friday 27 January 2012 talking about two famous St Agnes heavy horses which were hidden in an adit and cave close to Chapel Porth to prevent them being requisitioned by the Army at the start of The Great War. Radio Cornwall’s interest was aroused by the success of the film Warhorse. Roger was able to tell listeners that one horse, Captain, was from Beacon Cottage Farm, and thus a farm horse, whilst the other, Albert, was the prized lead horse of a team of heavy horses that hauled machinery, often to and from the mines, around Cornwall for their owner Jimmy Thomas.

We actually had a flurry of visits to the Museum just before we closed which greatly helped us reach the magic number of 5000 visitors. We were delighted to welcome Curnow School from Redruth, Year 5 from St Agnes Primary School, St Agnes Chamber of Commerce and then St Agnes Cub Pack and their leaders.

In the autumn we dipped into our New Purchases Fund to buy as one lot, two separate sets of auction particulars relating to the Basset’s Tehidy Estate. Only one set was Parish-related, giving details of land for sale in Porthtowan, on Mulgram Hill and at Chapel Porth, so we were delighted when, thanks to the efforts of one of our members, the other set was sold and the Museum was able to show a profit on the overall transaction.

Our John Opie presentation paintbox is currently on display in the Long Gallery at County Hall, Truro, where we hope County Councillors will notice it. It forms part of a small display of items from Cornwall’s smaller museums.

Warmest congratulations to Museum member and former Treasurer, Tony Mansell, on being made a Bard of the Gorsedh “For services to Cornish heritage and research”. Tony’s Bardic name is Skrifer Istori, or Writer of History. Two Committee members, Clive Benney and Peter Thomas, are already Bards.