News items related to the Eden Valley Museum

The Eden Valley Museum Trust, Edenbridge, is pleased to announce the appointment of Elizabeth Fleming as its new President on the eve of a new guest exhibition celebrating 100 years of girl guiding.

Mrs Fleming brings a wealth of personal expertise and public service experience to the trust whose mission is to develop the Museum’s services for the benefit of the community of the entire Eden Valley.

“Having been very interested in the Museum for many years, I’m extremely flattered to have been invited to become President of the Eden Valley Museum Trust. Local museums are key in helping residents and visitors to the area to understand more about where they live.” says Mrs Fleming.

She adds “Children are particularly interested in how people lived and worked and the Museum helps bring this to life for them. It’s important to get the Museum out into schools and the community and I’m excited at the Museum plan to do more of this.”

As Deputy Lieutenant for the county of Kent and with longstanding responsibility with the National Gardens Scheme both in Kent and nationally, Mrs Fleming is already an active supporter and champion of the local community. Together with her husband, Valentine Fleming, she has made a significant contribution to the preservation of local heritage through the 40 year restoration of Stonewall Park, a landmark estate in the Eden Valley. The Flemings have also been sponsors of the Museum for many years.

“The Museum is very lucky to have such an enthusiastic and engaged new President. Not only does she bring the depth and breadth of personal experience that will be instrumental in our future development, but she already has an extensive knowledge of the Museum.”

The Museum celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2010 and is also helping celebrate 100 years of Girl Guides through a special exhibition which runs from 6th October to 18th December. The trust’s new president is also a girl guide and has a long association with the movement – her mother established a pack in the 1920s and was overseas commissioner for England in the 1950s. As Mrs Fleming says “once a girl guide, always a girl guide”: she is not only eagerly anticipating the exhibition but hopes to track down one of her mother’s minute books to add to the display.

As part of our 10th birthday celebrations, the museum will be launching a History Quiz on Saturday 26th June. Quiz sheets cost £1. These sheets will be obtainable from the Museum and The Edenbridge Bookshop.
Closing date for entries is 30th November 2010.
The first correct question sheet pulled from the hat on Friday 17th December will win an annual pass for two to Hever Castle Gardens during 2011.
Prize kindly donated by Hever Castle.

Jane Thornton Higgs, Honorary Curator at the Eden Valley Museum has been awarded the Member of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours announced on 12 June 2010. She receives the award for services to the Heritage of Eden Valley in Kent.

On hearing of the honour, Jane says “It’s absolutely thrilling and a huge surprise. To receive this in the year the museum celebrates its 10th birthday is wonderful. The success of the museum is due to the team of dedicated and hard working volunteers without whom we would not have achieved so much.”

Jane has contributed significantly to raising the awareness and profile of the social history and heritage of the Eden Valley initially as a volunteer and currently as Honorary Curator of the Eden Valley Museum. She has been involved with the development of the museum since 1997. Since her appointment, there has been a steady increase year on year in both the number of visitors to the museum and the number of volunteers that want to be involved as well as stronger links with the community and other local historical attractions.

One of the museum volunteers comments “All of us involved with the Museum are delighted with Jane’s outstanding achievement which recognises her commitment, hard work and exceptional talents.”

Now in its 10th year of being open to the public, the Eden Valley Museum has frequently been extolled as an exemplary example of a successful local history museum by The Rt.Hon. Sir John Stanley, M.P, and was recommended as a model to the Tonbridge Historical Society who wish to set up a museum. The Edenbridge Healthcheck report in 2005 stated ‘I admire your museum, it is one of the strongest products you have got. It is absolutely vital that you shout from the rooftops what it can provide for visitors.’

As part of the museum’s 10th birthday celebrations, on Saturday 26th June, Lord Astor will open a “Teddies and Toys” themed event at the museum. Catherine Southon will be onsite to give valuations (prebooking required), various children’s activities are planned and refreshments will be available. The event also marks the launch of the Eden Valley history quiz which is open until 30th November.

MUSEUM NEWS, February 2010. To download in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) format (1.95MB's) click here

Printed copies of this MUSEUM NEWS at £3.00 plus postage and packing can be obtained from the museum - 01732-868102

There are also earlier MUSEUM NEWS that can be viewed:-
April 2009 - To download in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) format (1.666MB's) click here
April 2008 - To download in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) format (1.73MB's) click here
December 2006 - To download in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) format (1.737MB's) click here
April 2006 - To download in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) format (2.434MB's) click here
November 2005 - To download in .pdf (Adobe Acrobat Reader) format (0.320MB's) click here

SANDY GALL IN CONVERSATION
------------------------------------------------
Tuesday 13th April 2010, 6 - 8pm Includes refreshments and a private viewing of UNVEILED:
An exhibition of Harriet Logan’s iconic images of women’s daily life in Afghanistan.
Tickets £10 in aid of the Sandy Gall Afghanistan Appeal
(museum will receive a 50p donation from TopFoto for everyone attending this event)
Tickets available from the TopFoto gallery and the museum shop.
Topfoto Gallery, 1 Fircroft Way, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 5PF

JOHN SURTEES IN CONVERSATION
--------------------------------------------------
A TOAST TO 50 YEARS AGO – 1960, A MOMENTOUS YEAR
Thursday 27th May 2010, 6 – 8pm
Includes refreshments and the opportunity to view and discuss with him an album of early photographs.
Tickets £10 in aid of the Eden Valley Museum Trust
Tickets available from the TopFoto gallery and the museum shop.
Topfoto Gallery, 1 Fircroft Way, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 5PF

During 2010 the museum will have stands at two local events - Saturday, 5th June at the Edenbridge Rotary Festival and Sunday, 18th July at Bore Place Open Day near Chiddingstone. For more details please contact the museum.

SERVICE ABOVE SELF
AN EXHIBITION CELEBRATING THE 40th ANNIVERSARY
OF THE ROTARY CLUB OF EDENBRIDGE
3rd February – 30th May 2010

Most Edenbridge residents will be used to seeing the Rotary wheel emblem displayed on various occasions around Edenbridge and Rotarians standing on street corners in their bright yellow tabards collecting for charitable causes or struggling (usually in the wind and rain) to erect the ShelterBox tent in the square when raising funds for the victims of international disasters; but how much do you actually know about Rotary?

Service Above Self, a new exhibition at the Eden Valley Museum, provides an insight into an organisation that has, in just over 100 years, grown from a group of four professionals meeting once a week, to an International organisation with over 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide, all with common aims - to combat hunger, improve health and sanitation, provide education and job training, promote peace, and eradicate polio - under the motto Service Above Self.

This exhibition charts the history of Rotary, from its origins in Chicago in 1905, to the formation of the first clubs in Britain and Ireland in 1912, the birth of the Edenbridge Club in 1969, and the acceptance of women into the organisation, as late as 1987! It features local and international charities the club has supported during the past 40 years, individual achievements by members, and the fun they’ve had on the way.

This exhibition isn’t just about Rotarians or just for Rotarians. If you have ever attended a Rotary function or sponsored event, from the Edenbridge Festival to the annual Strawberry Tea for senior citizens, your picture may well be on display. And what connections do an ITN newsreader, a 1950s pop star, and a cricket commentator have with the club – visit the exhibition to find out.

.............................................................

From Wednesday, 3rd February 2010

A History of the World in the Garden of England

10 objects of local and global significance in Kent Museum Collections

Throughout 2010 the Eden Valley Museum will be exhibiting one of the 'top ten' objects from Kent Museums: 10 objects of local and global significance in Kent Museum Collections

Needlework box made by a German Prisoner of War for a local
Land Army girl.

A gift from the enemy for a Kent Land Girl.

Made by a German prisoner of war called Christoph who was working at Brookers Farm, now known as Stonewall Home Farm, Chiddingstone Hoath. It was made for Peggy Chapman, a land girl, as a Christmas present.

Christoph

Peggy tells us that Christoph, a German prisoner of war had been captured in Russia, sent to America, then transported back to a PoW camp in Tonbridge, Kent. From the camp he went with a colleague, Herman, to live on a farm at Chiddingstone Hoath. Here they worked alongside Peggy Chapman who was serving her country on the home front in the Women’s Land Army, hand milking 60 cows each day. From their different backgrounds they were all working to ensure the British people didn’t run out of food after WW2

Lennox Cato discusses the box with Peggy Peggy with her needlework box

This object was chosen to join the other nine objects from Kent Museums because of its local and global significance.
The museum collection is made up of objects that have been donated by local people to tell the story of the land and people of the Eden Valley in West Kent.
The object that has been chosen from our collection for A History of the World is one of several beautiful objects we hold made by prisoners of war and given as gifts to local people. We welcome this opportunity to explore the stories behind these objects in more depth.
Many objects from our WW2 collection, including the material from ‘Doing Our Bit’ Memories of WW2, our extensive 2005 exhibition, are on display in the galleries. If anyone has any further gifts of this kind in our collecting area, TN8 and TN11, we would be delighted to hear from them.

.............................................................

Saturday 23rd January 2010 at 7.30 - Burns Night Dinner
Drinks in the Museum followed by a three course Scottish dinner in Rickards Hall. Licensed bar.
Tickets £20 from The Edenbridge Bookshop, Tel: 862180
In aid of the Eden Valley Museum Trust - Charity No. 1065466

..................................................................

Friday, 13th November 2009
Costume Historian, Jean Bruce, returns to the Eden Valley Museum in November to give a talk on: Knickers and Thongs!
A light hearted look at underwear from the 1930s to the 21st century. Friday 13th November, 7.30pm in Rickards Hall. Light Refreshments available. Tickets £5, EVMT Members £4.50, available from the museum and the Edenbridge Bookshop. Raising funds for the Eden Valley Museum Trust.

Barn Dance – to The Round House Folk [Bernard Oldfield]. Saturday 10 October - 7.30pm to 11.00 pm, Cowden Village Hall. Tickets: £10 [£5 for children] includes a large ‘ploughman’s’ platter for each table. Licensed Bar.
Tickets now on sale in the museum and the Edenbridge Bookshop.
In aid of the Eden Valley Museum Trust.

John Topham, Memory Lane: the way we were 1933 to 1950
The first exhibition at the new Topfoto Gallery.
House of Jaques, 1 Fircroft Way, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 6EL Open: Mon-Fri 9.30 am – 5.00 pm, Sat 10.00 am – 1.00 pm, Sundays by appointment. Free Parking. Entrance: Free.

For every visitor to the Gallery, the museum will receive a donation of 50p so please visit the gallery and encourage all your friends and visitors to do so as well.

Saturday, 27th June to Saturday 19th December, 2009 - The Great Migration
This exhibition is about the development of the Stangrove and Spitals Cross Estates in Edenbridge in the 1950s and 1960s respectively. It takes a brief look back at the land use before these two estates were built and relates the stories of some of the men and women who arrived from various London boroughs to take up residence in a very different kind of community from the one they had left. A huge change was experienced by all concerned. Those arriving from ‘the smoke’ had to adjust to their new circumstances and that adjustment took many forms. Some people slipped into rural life easily and others found it more difficult. Those already living in Edenbridge at the time ‘the locals’ had to get used to a sudden jump in the population and the arrival of ‘townies’ in their midst.

This exhibition is just the beginning. The Great Migration continues and there will be more stories to tell in the future. Since the 1960s there has been constant enlargement of the community with further areas of housing being built. It is hoped that a grant can be obtained to complete a plan to record the experiences of many more people who have come to live in Edenbridge.
Coffee Morning, 10am – 12pm and Exhibition Opening. Edenbridge Town Band will be playing in the Courtyard

Friday 5 June, 2009 - KNICKERS AND THINGS!
Underwear from 1850-1930s. - A talk by Jean Bruce
7.30pm, Rickards Hall. Refreshments Available Tickets £5, EVMT Members £4.50 from the museum or Edenbridge Bookshop.

BURNS NIGHT DINNER
Drinks in the Museum followed by a three course Scottish dinner and entertainment in Rickards Hall. Licensed bar
Eden Valley Museum & Rickards Hall, Saturday 24th January, 7.30pm
Tickets £20 available from
The Edenbridge Book Shop, 79 High Street, Edenbridge
In aid of the Eden Valley Museum Trust

Situation Vacant

Honorary Secretary to the Executive Committee

The Secretary is one of the three elected officers on the Executive and a charity trustee, so has the opportunity to get fully involved with the success of the museum by contributing to its leadership, policies and activities. If you are interested in knowing more, please contact the Chairman, Alan Smith 01732 863939.

Bob Ogley, Local Historian and Author of 22 books

will be giving a talk on: Kent Weather
Friday 21st November, 7.30 pm in Rickards Hall
Tickets £8.50 (£7.50 EVMT Members)
Tickets include a Private View of the ‘Our River’ Exhibition - remembering the floods of 1958 and 1968. Tickets will be on sale at the museum and the Edenbridge Bookshop from 1st November.

Heritage Open Days at the Eden Valley Museum

Sat 13th Sept 10 am–4.30 pm : Sun 14th Sept 11 am–4.30 pm

On the Saturday there will be a Michaelmas Fayre with a variety of stalls including: cakes, bric-a-brac, books, toys, plants and much more. A Guided Walk at 2pm during which we hope to be able to visit Taylour House, and an opportunity to have photographs taken in a Tudor costume (bring your own camera). Morning Coffee, Lunches and Afternoon Teas will be served in Rickards Hall on Saturday, and light refreshments on Sunday. This year we are sharing Rickards Hall with the Edenbridge Painting for Pleasure Group who will be exhibiting their artwork on both days.

Edenbridge - New Research Tool

Copies of the following DVD are now available in the museum. Price £10
“Edenbridge – An Index of People and Places 1200 – 1851”
Researched and compiled by Lionel Cole
Published by the North West Kent Family History Society (NWKFHS).

Wednesday 5th March 2008 - Bamber Gascoigne visits Eden Valley Museum

Hot on the heels of the best visitor numbers ever, and receiving Accreditation from the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council, the Eden Valley Museum welcomed a visit by Bamber Gascoigne on Wednesday 5 March.
Bamber Gascoigne is best known for his television role as chairman of University Challenge for twenty-five years (1962-1987) before handing over to Jeremy Paxman. Bamber Gascoigne was in Edenbridge at the invitation of local businessman Alan Smith, Chair of the Eden Valley Museum Trust and Managing Partner of TopFoto, the Edenbridge-based photograph library working with Bamber Gascoigne to test his major new search tool for the web, combining timelines from his HistoryWorld with text and image search. TimeSearch is a major new asset for students, researchers, writers, academics – and museums! – to search the web through time. He demonstrated TimeSearch to the museum curators and volunteers.

For more information on this and Bamber Gascoigne's new website click here

Friday, 22nd February 2008, the Rt. Hon. Sir John Stanley, MP presented the MLA Accreditation Award to the Eden Valley Museum.

The MLA's Accreditation Scheme sets nationally agreed standards for UK museums. To meet the requirements of the scheme, museums demonstrate that they achieve clearly defined standards relating to governance and management, services for users, visitor facilities and collections management.
Hon. Curator, Jane Higgs, and Hon. Secretary to the Executive Committee, Helen Jackman, worked tirelessly towards implementing the standards necessary, which could not have been achieved without the support and enthusiasm of their wonderful team of volunteers.

For more information on this and video of the presentation speech by Sir John Stanley click here

Picture Perfect – Museum Awarded MDS Grant

Following a successful bid to the Kent & Medway Museum Development Service (MDS) Grants programme, volunteers at the museum, in conjunction with TopFoto (Edenbridge), have embarked upon a project to create a digital archive of the museum’s collections of postcards, photographs and slides.
The project, led by Deputy Hon. Curator Joan Varley, started on 1st February and is due to complete on 31st July, by which time several thousand images will have been scanned and stored, creating a digital archive that will safeguard the collections for future generations and which can also be drawn upon for future exhibitions.

Eden Valley Museum – Visitor Numbers Reach All Time High

2007 saw the highest number of visitors to the Eden Valley Museum since it opened in 2000.
More than 4500 people were attracted by exhibitions such as ‘All Good Sports’ and ‘Hurricane Havoc’. Forthcoming exhibitions in 2008 will include Edenbridge High Street History (now showing) a special exhibition created in recognition of the Edenbridge 2008 Project which draws to its conclusion at the end of March; A Tudor Drama (Mar–Sep); Schooldays (Jun–Dec); and Our River / The Great Floods (Sep– Dec) remembering the floods of 1958 and 1968.

Art Competition and Exhibition July 2005

The Theme for 2005's Art Exhibition is The Art of Travel. The competition is open to local school children and adults and will be on display at the museum from Saturday 23rd - Sunday 24th July 2005. Artists are encouraged to enter a piece of work in any medium and to let their imagination take them on a journey of discovery.

Visitors will be invited to vote for their favourite work of art. For further details and an entrance form please pick a leaflet up from the museum.

This competition and exhibition was sponsored by Lloyds TSB.

Churchill Exhibition is a great success

A new, temporary exhibition opened during the summer of 2004 at the museum giving a new insight to our most famous country neighbour - Sir Winston Churchill. The exhibition of photographs illustrated Churchill's life as a Family Man, Statesman, War-time Leader & Hero, Countryman & Sportsman, Darling of The Crowds and also showed what his life was like at Chartwell. The exhibition continued in other rooms of the museum where personal mementoes of local residents show the close relationship the Churchill family had with local people.

There are C.D's and booklets still available for purchase in the Museum Shop.

This exhibition was sponsored by www.topfoto.co.uk and entrance to the museum was free during the run of the exhibition.

Were You Being Served?

The Celebrity Coffee morning held on Saturday 14th February 2003 was a massive success. Actors from the 70's sitcom Are You Being Served lent their support to the museum and attracted a huge crowd to the event. The steady stream of visitors meant that Mollie Sugden (Mrs Slocombe), Frank Thornton (Captain Peacock) and Trevor Bannister (Mr Lucas) were kept busy handing out cups of tea and signing autographs.

Photograph courtesy of Chronicle Newspapers

Mr Thornton, father of honorary curator Jane Higgs, joked, "I am here because my daughter ordered me to be. Things like this allow people to get to know their neighbours. When I was young everybody lived around the corner, but now with the car, everybody is spread out and that sense of local community is in danger of being diluted."

Mr Bannister, surrounded by a keen throng of people added, "It is lovely to see such good support for the museum. Not every place is going to have one because not everywhere has the artefacts and history around it."

The event was a huge success and raised in excess of £1000.

HOME Research RoomHire Facilities Tours&Groups Events News AboutUs ExhibitPreview Admission FindUs Contacts Links Sponsors HistoryofChurchHse


Lennox Cato discusses the box with Peggy	Peggy with her needlework box