We had loads of brilliant entries for our children's Magna Carta competition, but of course we had to pick a winner - well, two actually (one for each age category)... Here are the winning entries, which can also be seen on the museum Facebook fan page
Winner, 8-11 age group.
Runner up, 8-11 age group.
Runner up, 8-11 age group.
Winner, 4-7 age group.
Runner up, 4-7 age group.
Runner up, 4-7 age group.
If you are interested in the archaeology of our local area, you may be interested to know about this year's Beds and Herts Archaeological Review, which takes place on Saturday 16th October 2010. It will be held at the Spirella Building in Letchworth from 9:30am - 4:30pm.
You can download a poster and a booking form here. If you have any queries or would like more information, please contact Tim Vickers by email on timothy.vickers@lutonculture.com or by phone on 01582 547969.
...and he's hidden some easter eggs around the place! Families who come to the Museum of St Albans between Friday 2nd and Sunday 18th April 2010 can search for the eggs, solve the clues and maybe even get a prize. You can also do some fun Easter colouring and have a look at some Easter cards which were posted over a hundred years ago! And don't forget, the Easter egg hunt, and admission to the Museum of St Albans, is FREE!
You can have a look at some Easter cards like this one at the museum over the Easter weekend. Some are over 100 years old!
Download an Easter Egg Hunt flyer:
See more old Easter Cards on our Facebook fan page (this link will open in a new window)
We are always working to make sure that there is plenty for children and families to do at St Albans Museums. Hopefully anyone who enjoyed the Christmas Cats trail will have a go at this one too, and it will give our regular visitors something new to do in the galleries. We will keep you posted throughout the year about new activities for adults and children at both our museums, and if you are a visitor who has some suggestions about how we can improve things for you, please do get in touch!
This year St Albans is hosting celebrations for the Magna Carta, the great charter agreed in 1215 between King John and his barons. St Albans and its abbey played their part in the events surrounding this momentous step on the way to many of our most valued freedoms.
At the time of Magna Carta, the monastery at St Albans was famous for its learned monks, like Matthew Paris, who produced many handwritten and beautifully decorated books for their own and other libraries. The first letter of a chapter as beautifully decorated although it was still recognizable. We call these letters illuminated letters.
This is the sort of illuminated letter you might come up with. Add as many amazing creatures and patterns as you can!
As part of our celebrations, we are holding a competition for children of primary school age. We would like you to produce an illuminated letter. This could be either the initial of your first name only, or you could write your first name with the first letter decorated. Remember to make the initial/first letter as attractive as you can.
It can be any size up to A4 and you can use paints, crayons, or any medium you choose. It can be in a medieval style, or something you think a modern monk might do. Scripts of any language will be welcome.
You can do a single illuminated letter or your whole name.
Download an information sheet about how to enter the competition:
Steam train at St. Albans City Station.
The Museum of St Albans is holding an exhibition to commemorate and celebrate the ‘Lost Rails’ of Hertfordshire, a number of which are now being used as cycleways, footpaths and bridleways. This project focuses on the heritage of six of these branch lines: the Ayot Greenway, Alban Way, Nicky Line, Ebury Way, Cole Green Way and Buntingford Line.
London Road Station in 1867. This station was part of the Hatfield to St Albans branch of the Great Northern Railway line.
We would be interested in hearing from anyone who has memories of these routes, either when they were still railways or since they were closed. We are particularly interested in talking to people who worked on the lines, used them to get to work, lived alongside them, or recall any interesting incidents that occurred on them.
Postcard showing Hill End Asylum with the railway tracks leading towards the hospital in the left foreground, postmarked 1904.
If you would like to share your memories, or lend any photographs or other objects associated with these lines to the museum for the exhibition, please contact Rosalyn Goulding at the Museum of St Albans on 01727 819581 or ros.goulding@stalbans.gov.uk , or write to:
The Museum of St Albans, 9a Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3RR.
This exhibition, postponed from 2009, is now being held from September 2010 at the Museum of St Albans as part of a Heritage Lottery Funded Project and in partnership with Groundwork Hertfordshire.
- Visit Groundwork Hertfordshire's website (this link will open in a new window)
- Learn more about the work of the Heritage Lottery Fund (this link will open in a new window)
The image below may be instantly recognisible to people who are familiar with the objects on display at Verulamium Museum, or may be completely mysterious to those who aren't! This is in fact a coat of chain mail armour which was discovered as part of an exceptionally rich Romano-British burial at Folly Lane in St Albans.
Folded iron mail armour from Folly Lane burial, c. AD 55.
The excavations at Folly Lane in 1991-2 revealed the burial of a British chieftain who kept on good terms with the Romans and who had been cremated along with a collection of expensive objects, presumably his personal posessions. These included the remains of enamelled horse equipment, a chariot, evidence of ivory imports and the only complete mail armour suit from this time in the country. All these had been placed on a funeral pyre, the culmination of an elaborate funeral ritual. Pottery excavated from the burial dates it to around AD 55. Unfortunately the identity of the decessed is something that will probably never be known for certain.
John Pearson - Reconstruction of the funeral at the Folly Lane Burial Funeral
The Folly Lane chain mail was selected by our curators to be part of the History of the World project, which is a collaboration between the BBC and the British Museum. Museums around the country have teamed up with the BBC in their area and chosen over 600 objects from their own collections that reflect world history from each area's perspective. St Albans Museums is one of three hundred and fifty museums that are already registered on the site.
You can see the Folly Lane chain mail tunic on the BBC History of the World website (this link will open in a new window). Here you can also explore the other objects included in the project and add your own contribution to the project). You can also read more about the objects from Museums in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire featuring in this project on the BBC Three Counties Radio website (this link will open in a new window).
After a very snowy start to the year we're hoping that things are starting to get back to normal now (although the forecasts suggest we might not have seen the last of the snow for this year yet...). One of the things we're really excited about for the new year is the return of our Reminiscence Coffee Mornings. We did run a series of 6 of these coffee mornings at the start of last year and they were a great success so it is really great to have got this up and running again.
Our Shopping Reminiscence box, also available for loan
Reminiscence is often a lot of fun - for the museums staff as well as members of the public! - and even young children love to do it. It can also be a good opportunity for parents of all ages to share their memories with their children and tell them what it was like when they were their age.
Ballito stockings packet from the 1960s. Many people have memories of the Ballito factory in St Albans.
The coffee mornings are purposely relaxed and informal and give anyone who wants to the opportunity to come into the museum, relax with a cup of tea and a biscuit and handle objects and photographs from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. If you would like to bring your own objects and pictures to show people and talk about, that would be wonderful.
Children at Abbey Primary School, St Albans , c.1955
You can click below if you would like to download the flyer with details of dates and themes for the first six coffee mornings we have planned. These details are also availble on our Diary page.
This week we are finally able to announce that our new Fleetville book is on sale now! The research for this project started back in 2008 and so everyone is thrilled to finally be able to see the finished product, especially its joint authors who have been working away behind the scenes on this project for so long. The book looks at the history of Fleetville from the eighteenth century when the road to Hatfield was built right up to the present day.
Hatfield Road, St Albans in 1903.
Fleetville is a bustling and diverse area that has experienced rapid change in the post-war years, but still retains its sense of community. The book has been a team effort which was lead by three museum researchers but also incorporates the reminiscences of a number of Fleetville’s inhabitants, both past and present, to tell the story of how the area has changed and developed.
Flooding under the Sutton Road railway bridge in June 1910
Many businesses which have come and gone over the years, including the Ballito stocking factory, Nicholson's Coats, Sander's Orchid Nursery, the Campfield Press and Marconi Instruments Ltd.
'Going to work...at Ballito' leaflet to attract women to work at the Ballito hoisery factory in Fleetville
It also covers other aspects of local life, from religion to schools and shops.
The St Albans Islamic Centre, 141 Hatfield Road in 1999.
As well as telling the history of this part of St Albans, it also includes a heritage trail that you can follow around Fleetville and perhaps see a new side to some familiar sights. If you're interested in buying a copy - and perhaps a couple of extras for Christmas presents! - the book is currently available at the Museum of St Albans but we are hoping it will soon be stocked at Verulamium Museum and St Albans Tourist Information Centre.
Lord Robert Runcie, Bishop of St Albans 1970-1980, with his gargoyle at St Albans Abbey, 1979.
Earlier in the month I posted about the visit we recieved from the Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Reverend Alan Smith, and you can now see photographic evidence of this online. If you've ever wondered what the photo studio at Verulamium Museum looks like, or what the face of the image library (and the face behind this blog post!) looks like, then wonder no more!
- Read the story online (this link will open in a new window)
Normally I would try to avoid starting the Christmas celebrations until at least the start of December, but this year has been an exception since we were asked to decorate a tree for the Festival of the Trees at St Albans Town Hall. This event is being organised by Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, who can be found just round the corner of Verulamium Museum.
- Visit the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust website (this link will open in a new window)
Preparations started at the end of last week when all available staff joined in with the cutting, sticking and laminating of tree decorations. We used images of some of the objects from our collections to make decorations, including giant Roman and Iron Age gold coins for baubles!
An Iron Age coin transformed into a Christmas bauble
Since no Christmas tree would be complete without the angel on top, we decided to make our own slightly unconventional one by dressing up our Verulamium Venus so she was fit for a Christmas party! Unfortunately by the time she made it to the top of the tree she'd lost a sequin or two, but still looked pretty eye-catching.
The Verulamium Venus moonlighting as a Christmas angel!
We spent a lovely morning decorating our tree and are pretty proud with the result!
The finished tree in all its glory!
The Festival of Trees is open to the public on the 5th and 6th of December if you fancy seeing our tree and the many others decorated by other community groups.
- For more details, you can visit the Festival of Trees website (this link will open in a new window).
- You can also see these photos and others on our Facebook fan page (this link will open in a new window).
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