A new exhibition opening on Saturday 23 November is set to celebrate Ancient House Museum’s fascinating and eclectic collection – from a 100,000-year-old hand axe to a 1990s Skid Lid bike helmet, and anything and everything in between!
A History of Ancient House in 100 Objects exhibition kicks off a year of celebrations as the museum marks the centenary of its opening on 11th December 1924. The exhibition and the centenary celebrations are supported by National Lottery players through The National Lottery Heritage Fund, alongside support from Breckland Council, Thetford Town Council and the Friends of Ancient House Museum.
Thomas Paine death mask.
To commemorate this important milestone curators at the museum have worked with local school and community groups to create the exhibition which focuses on the importance of the museum’s ever-evolving collection of more than 7,000 objects.
Each group has chosen ten items which came into the museum collection during each decade the museum has been open, from the 1920s to the 2020s. Delving into the museum archives, the community curators researched hundreds of objects to come up with their final shortlists to go on display.
Flat glasses from the Second World War that could fit underneath a gas mask.
The resulting displays contain a huge range of objects from the ancient to the modern, from the humble to the elaborate, and from the famous to the obscure. What unites them is they are all, in their own way, ‘treasure’.
A flint axe from Grime’s Graves.
Examples include the death mask of Thomas Paine – possibly Thetford’s most famous son – appearing alongside a humble 16th century clay cooking pot from a chalk mine on Station Road. A famous hoard of Roman silver coins, discovered by a detectorist from Thetford bypass excavations in 1989, is complemented by a hand-made nail which caught the attention of one community curator because it’s bent and had a ‘hard life’.
The reasons for choosing each object included in the displays show the many different ways we connect with material history as Oliver Bone, long-standing Curator of Ancient House Museum, explains: “It’s been fascinating and instructive to hear why certain objects have appealed. One child from the museum’s History Club chose a flint from the pre-historic site of Grimes Graves describing it as being ‘sharp like a porcupine as dark as a storm cloud’.
Roman silver coins found in work for Thetford bypass.
“Others have been chosen because they’ve triggered personal memories for community members – an inkwell of being an ink monitor at school or a rusty pen knife bringing back happy times helping Grandad pick runner beans. While for some it’s the questions the object raises which intrigue – like the key to a house that no longer exists. Their thoughtful responses remind us that objects from the past don’t necessarily have to be valuable to be of value.”
Items like wig curlers, lace bobbins and dress pins and tools like an ancient quern stone or postal scales reveal details of people’s everyday personal and working lives, while the public life of the town is revealed in objects such as a poster for Town Hall entertainments (featuring a ‘laughing horse’ and ‘the Wonderful Whistler’!) or a Coronation Medal of Edward VII.
This poster was chosen to illustrate the differences in what was considered amusing in the nineteenth century compared to now.
The range of objects on display provides a snapshot of how the museum’s collections have developed over the past hundred years, whether through the generous efforts of local donors like George Wild Staniforth, purchases supported by the Museum Friends and others, or in more modern times, through fundraising to acquire important items.
The history of the collections is also a history of the museum’s development, a story the exhibition also tells alongside the displays of objects – from its origins as a gift to the town from Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, its expansion through the dedication of curators and volunteers, to the major redevelopment in 2004-2006 and the vibrant community museum Ancient House is today.
