Out for the day
We’ve been having glorious weather here for the last few days: bright, sunny and unseasonably warm. A shame then, that the first gloomy day that dawned was the one when we’d planned to buzz off for the day. Did we worry about that? Not one bit!
The clue to our destination is in the title photo for this post. We were heading to Glastonbury, Somerset. Not for a music festival, nor for any mystical or neopagan purposes either. I had come across a reference to an exhibition at the Somerset Rural Life Museum which had interested both of us sufficiently to book a couple of spots to visit. It’s not that far from here - just over an hour across country and with a swift alternative route home on the motorway.
The museum was quiet yesterday morning and reminded us of the type of place we’d call in on a Road Trip.
There was a lovely welcome at the threshold and we were immediately glad we’ve come! There was a well signposted route to follow and we needed no further instruction - it appeared we had the place to ourselves.
The first stop was the kitchen, laid for a family meal and arranged with some lovely vignettes to attract closer attention.
We’d had no idea of what to expect, but were impressed by the design and layout here. A few interesting facts and lines from folk songs were painted on the walls here and there, so as we looked around we’d sing a familiar tune (“dashing away with the smoothing iron, she stole my heart away”) or express surprise at a previously unknown fact (“By 1950 Somerset had become the leading milk producer in England”)
Before progressing into the adjacent rooms, we stopped a while to listen to an audio recording of memories illustrated with clever animated cartoons. Lovely old tales, told with a twinkle!
The next rooms had themed displays with a good mix of content to tell the story. I always appreciate the clever design touches in such places and this one was really well done. There must have been a wealth of material to include and it’s all the more impressive that a good balance had been drawn; enough to tell the tale and offer a good representation without over cluttering.
Neither was there too much writing! It’s a pet hate of mine - who has time to stand and read copious quantities of dense print, however much we might want to learn about the items on show? What explanation there was had been imaginatively placed and kept to a minimum.
Clearly the Tor was going to feature in here somewhere and an open window allowed a fine view of it, which sadly my photography skills didn’t match.
We made our way through a series of rooms then, enjoying learning about various aspects of Somerset life: the butter school (where women could learn to make butter, of course!) local arts and crafts and collections of local interest like these wassail cups with two handles, to facilitate passing the cup from one hand to another during the wassail celebrations.
One other item on show resolved a puzzle I’d been thinking about since earlier this morning. I was sure I had seen a post by the side of the road which said “The fingers will be returned shortly”. What? A quick google on my phone had turned up nothing but advice for arthritis!! However, all became clear when I read of the Somerset Fingerpost Restoration Project, the report of which refers to “finding broken fingers”. Of course, a fingerpost is what I’d call a signpost and each direction point is a finger!
With a sigh of relief that bodily mutilation was not common practice in these parts, we turned into the stables area and made our way through the main part of the “rural life” area of the museum.
Here were displayed the tools of the many trades associated with the county, once again beautifully displayed with a minimum of signage, though the stories to clarify the things on show were there alongside. We know Somerset to be a county associated with shoemaking - Clarks are just up the road and although the manufacturing process is mostly based overseas now, their distribution depot remains. Unsurprising then to find one of the first displays to be of shoemaking. The Singer sewing machine in the general photo above is a specialist machine for sewing shoes.
Alongside the shoes were the tools of the other Somerset trade we knew about already - glovemaking. I just came across a lovely description of the machine which applied the dies in the picture above on Cornelia James’ website: (holder of the Royal Warrant for Gloves since 1978)
Some of the machinery that we use is quite old. Our gloves are die cut using a manually operated lever press made by WH Hallett & Sons of Yeovil, Somerset over 100 years ago. We’re not sentimental about it – we use it because it does the job very effectively and, when it’s not actually cutting gloves, it’s completely silent; a large and brooding presence in the cutting room.
The displays of tools continued in the alcoves along the stable wall, in this case, providing a little more amusement in showing the Poacher’s equipment alongside that of the Gamekeeper. No surprise to see they’re broadly the same!
Mostly, we were confirming our previous knowledge of Somerset’s rural industries here, though I think both of us were surprised by the dairy heritage, butter making in particular.
I had expected to see more of the willow weaving tradition here, however. Perhaps that’s not as important a local craft as I’d thought? With a glance back to make sure we’d not missed anything, we made our way out into the courtyard and wondered, where next? I mentioned the exhibition we’d hoped to see here and wondered where it could be, for we’d not seen anything of it so far.
Across the courtyard was a medieval barn and the door was open. It was raining hard by now, so we put our heads down and made a run…
Oh wow! No exhibition in here but my word, this was a beautiful structure! The light was magical too: I wasn’t sure if it was natural light or if there were cleverly concealed spotlights at work. It didn’t matter though, for the end result was magnificent.
We perched on a bench for a few moments to take it all in and to ponder on the location of the exhibition. Had I been mistaken about the dates? Had we missed it? Got the wrong end of the stick in some way?
We had no doubt, we’d seen everything here - we went back out into the courtyard (it had stopped raining) and could no nothing more than make our way back to the entrance, where I could ask if we’d missed something. As we headed towards the exit, there was just one door open…
Phew! Found it! I hadn’t been mistaken…the exhibition was just rather smaller and low key than I had imagined. We stepped inside the room and soon realised that, however small the exhibition of “actual things” was, the concentration of ideas, concepts and thoughts was anything but.
In the centre of the room was a small glazed tabletop case containing micro-collections of work by the various contributing artists and though it caught my immediate attention, I soon realised that the main show was the collection of panels on the walls: this was a mere illustration of some of the concepts.
My hero and I worked our way around the room, then, looking closely at photographs of each artist’s work and reading their short statement which accompanied it. These statements were so honestly written and so heartfelt to be somewhat touching in many cases. Usually such statements are written in vague, abstract terms but here, I could read of the actual everyday situation which inspired the work and for me, that was utterly refreshing.
For example, the artist who created the watercolour floral panels in the centre of this series of work.
I’ve never read such an honest and concise explanation of the background to some work and going on to read the other panels, most of which were composed in similar vein, we both found it fascinating. Better still, once home I found the website where each artist is listed with a link to their statement and project work.
There were many pieces which we both found intriguing, but I have no doubt that Jess Egan’s mind must work along similar lines to mine.
We enjoyed our picnic in the car park before coming home having had a really great day out. Is it being at home so long that makes the smallest thing so special? This was no major blockbuster of an exhibition in any way, but a smallish room in a rural county museum. And yet…
We need to get out more!
