Author: St Agnes Museum

The Museum closed on 31 October after a short but busy season when we welcomed 2,935 visitors between 19 July and 31 October, 6% up on our numbers for the same period in 2019. With a very few exceptions – a single visitor from Belarus, five from the USA, three from Germany, two from Australia – all our visitors were from the UK, almost all from England, very many from Cornwall and a pleasing number from St Agnes.

So many visitors praised our Stewards for their warm welcome, friendliness and local knowledge. Others praised the shop and a wide variety of exhibits were singled out for praise, including of course, our VR experience. Several young visitors looked forward to the Turtle speaking.

Here is a small sample of the glowing tributes to the Museum and its Stewards:

Welcoming and helpful. Tried on the VR headset. It’s fantastic. Thank you.

Fantastic help with Family Tree. Delightful Museum. Lovely activity for children.

I’m a Museum Educator and loved the “find the object bit” at the beginning of the visit.
A triumph. Puts a lot of bigger museums to shame.

One comment was definitely a first for us – it was in Cornish! With the help of our Cornish speaking Journal Editor, here is the original followed by the translation.

“Tarosvanos o oll mes an den ef o densa! Merase.” “Everything was fantastic, but the man [i.e. the Steward] was really good. Thank you.”

The Museum will reopen on 1 April 2022.

The Museum has just been given this unusual but heavyweight donation – a manhole cover made for St Agnes builders’ merchant, and cast with his name, E W Friston. Mr Friston had a shop in Peterville at the junction with Water Lane, and lived at Polberro. There is a photo of the shop in Clive Benney’s book “Down to Dirty Pool”.

As well as the three generous donations recently received (Jean Blunsdon painting, Nancy Homer bowl and John and Sue Sneddon jug), the Museum dipped into its New Acquisitions Fund and bought this oil painting by Gwen Clay of Higher Bal painted from Hill Head by the entrance to Vineyard Lane and looking down towards the village. It is an unusual subject for Gwen and in very muted, misty shades.  It will make a most interesting contrast with the Museum’s “The Road to Higher Bal” by Phyllis Chubb, from the other direction.

Without the generous donations to our New Acquisitions Fund we would not be able to buy something like this. Thank you.

We are delighted to have been given this large oil painting by Jean Blunsdon of the upper buildings of Wheal Coates. It was found in a Truro charity shop and donated to the Museum.

Jean, a very well known figure in St Agnes is a long-term member of St Agnes Art Group and regularly exhibited at its Summer Art Exhibitions. The Museum currently has on display upstairs Jean’s early wooden surfboard made for her by her father, Mr Mitchell. 

We have also been given this mustard coloured small bowl by Nancy Homer, the second potter who, with her family, occupied Wayside Pottery.  It carries her impressed mark. We are glad to add to our small collection on Nancy Homer pottery. 

A third recent donation – some things come in threes – is this rare blue tobacco spit jug by John and Sue Sneddon, the third tenants of Wayside Pottery. It was their son, also John, in a chance encounter at the Museum with our Curator, Clare Murton, who kindly donated the jug.

On 12 August the Committee of St Agnes Museum Trust invited members of St Agnes Parish Council and their staff to the Museum for a private view to show them what the Museum had achieved during the pandemic when the Museum was closed for 20 months.

Parish Council members and staff, including Chair, Diana Rodda, very much enjoyed trying the Virtual Reality Experience and being transported to St Agnes Harbour in 1904 where they watched ships being loaded and unloaded and setting sail, while sitting on a block retrieved from the harbour itself.

They also admired the new museum quality Medals’ cabinet and the improved Family History Corner.