Museum news

On a hot late summer’s day, three years after we had gathered to bury the jawbones and vertebra of the Fin Whale recovered by Roger Radcliffe and a team of helpers from a cove close to Porthtowan Beach in February 2010, almost the same group met in a St Agnes field to exhume the bones, thanks to the generosity of Ben Lockley of B Lockley Groundworks and his mini digger.

Fortunately we remembered accurately where the five metre long, immensely heavy jawbones had been buried, and after a few anxious moments, their outline became visible in the excavated trench, stained a mahogany brown due to their contact with the soil and the three tonnes of horse manure whose microbes, it had been hoped, would cleanse the bones’ interiors. The bones were carefully lifted from the trench and laid on the grass to be washed off.

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Some of you will remember Gwen Clay, a very well known and loved local artist, and a founding member of St Agnes Art Group, who lived at Wheal Friendly in St Agnes. Following her death last year, her family have generously offered us the loan of some of her oil paintings for an exhibition should we wish.

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The usual school visit to our Museum involves a guided look around the collection, sometimes with a theme in mind, and a chance to do the ever-popular Cuckoo Hunt. But on Thursday 16th May St Agnes Year 2 came with a different purpose in mind.

This term’s project is to set up their own class museum and they were anxious to get some tips from the experts! They came armed with some searching questions which Liz and Carol did their best to answer, trying to avoid the subject of dinosaurs, although the grand old Leatherback Turtle made a good stand-in!

They were even invited into the inner-sanctum of “Peter’s Room”, the Curator’s office and artefact store, to see how precious and fragile pieces are stored in acid-free conditions, and were impressed to hear of the thousands of objects carefully catalogued of which only a small number can be displayed at any one time.

Both children and staff went away bursting with ideas for their own museum and have promised to invite our education officers to their grand opening! It was a very good example of St Agnes Museum’s valuable role in the local community.

Update: Sadly HRH The Duke of Kent was taken ill shortly before his planned visit to the Museum to meet volunteers in March, but we hope that he may be able to visit us in the future.

We are very exited to announce that HRH The Duke of Kent will visit the Museum on Monday 25 March to meet as many of our volunteers as possible, to look around our displays, and to “take tea”. Preparations are already underway for what will be a very busy month, with our Members’ Preview, our Spring Coffee Morning, and our 2013 opening on Good Friday 29 March, as well as our Royal Visit.

We have been given the generous gift of a teapot made by John Vasey of the St Agnes Pottery, found in Truro’s Oxfam shop. While we have several items of John’s work, we didn’t until now have a teapot. We have also been given this beautiful elegant pot, with “Wayside Pottery, St Agnes, Cornwall” imprinted on its base.

Both will be on view upstairs when we open, together with further works of art.