Catching up with the carpet beetle and other stories

These images aren't from the Old House Museum's collection. Thanks, or rather, no thanks to the discovery of carpet beetle, the costumes and textiles have been under wraps, in the freezer, packed up in storage and off limits to the visitors for most of the season! When I visited the Manx Museum in September I took these photos of a lovely Edwardian dress, a knitting pattern for a WW1 balaclava,a Manx national costume and a model Viking. With the exception of the traditional Manx outfit these could all relate to Bakewell and its history. A rare Anglo Saxon artefact, the metal decorative piece at the end of a belt, has recently been found here. The Vikings came through and the crosses in the churchyard and surrounding area tell the tale of the spread and absorption of early Christianity as it adapted Viking religious iconography. The Isle of Man has a similar story in stone carvings. The process of getting rid of the beetle and altering the museum environment to make it less likely for it to come back will continue during the closed season, the winter months. Grants have been awarded for some of the costs. Wild Raven, a fantastic evening of art, photography, poetry and music raised funds and spirits. Thornbridge Brewery's beer of the same name was successfully showcased too! The Museum is still looking for volunteers to help pack and process the collection. Please get in touch if you can help. At the end of the 2014 season the Museum can look back on a challenging time. A huge Thankyou to all who have helped in so many different ways to make it a success. This blog is going to take a break for a few months, but don't forget that the Museum will be open for a special Christmas weekend, the 13th and 14th of December.

What's in a name

This small sculpture belonged to the Nightingale family, who had links to Derbyshire.Florence Nightingale's father built a textile business at Lea Mills, near Cromford and the family lived at Lea Hall when Florence was young. In later life she supported the Holloway reading room and Lea school.She was an invalid for many years after her involvement in the Crimean War and died in 1910 at the age of ninety. This statue was donated to the Old House Museum, along with a tiny blouse said to have belonged to Florence herself. At first it seemed too Edwardian in style, but on realising that she lived into the twentieth century, it seemed possible that it could have belonged to her. This sculpture belonged to Florence's sister Parthenope. Nowadays celebrities name their children after the cities where they were conceived. Too much information! Florence and her sister were named after the Italian cities where they were born. Florence is obvious. Parthenope is the Greek version of Naples (and is pronounced like Penelope).

Folk Art and Commemorative Crockery

When you think about folk art and ceramics, you think of harvest jugs and christening mugs, coronation cups and saucers, earthenware cooking pots. The recent Folk Art in Britain exhibition at Tate Britain included some great examples. Pottery and ceramics have been used to mark national occasions, commemorate personal life events and show political allegiances. Ceramic urns have even been used from earliest times to hold a person's ashes after death. The museum has some wonderful examples with a collection that includes everyday objects and replica English Delft ware and Thomas Toft style slip ware. There's also locally produced Pinxton porcelain and examples of Wedgewood. Stoneware hot water bottles, made at Pearsons factory in nearby Chesterfield, cooking pots and water purifiers are all there in the collection. Sometimes we know who the potter was. Their signature or cipher is on the piece. More often with folk art their work is anonymous, and if we are lucky there's a thumb print in the clay, the potter's mark, connecting the past with the present.

An elephant's tale

This photo of one of the display cases in the Museum tells a tragic tale. On my first day at work in the Museum, back in February 2003, I arrived to find an unusual object on my desk. It was a hollowed out elephant's foot, recently donated to the collection. I knew the story of the Bakewell elephant, but I hadn't expected to get so close to its remains. The museum also has one of its teeth, which can also be seen in the display case. Elephant teeth continue to grow, like rabbits' teeth, and are constantly worn down by feeding. I was told that the museum had also been offered a knife that was used to cut off pieces of the poor elephant's hide for souvenirs. Good taste prevailed and this donation was declined! The local story has a twist. This is said to be the only five footed elephant in existence, as those were the number of feet claimed to have come from this unlucky creature. I have also seen an old family photo of one of its tusks, found on the local tip where its body was buried. Newspaper articles of the time and information from the National Fairground Archive (based at Sheffield University) tell a confused story. Travelling circuses were a feature of the 20th century, and Sangers Circus visited Bakewell annually. In 1905 the circus came to town. Their star elephant was a bull, confusingly known as Old Paul or Phylis. Elephants are incredible creatures,intelligent and thoughtful. One version of events describes the bull elephant as being 'in must' and therefore difficult to handle, desperate for a female of the species. Another version describes how the elephant would take sweets from the audience. A cruel person put a carpet tack in a toffee and as the elephant picked it up with his sensitive trunk, he was maddened by the pain. One version has him breaking out of the circus tent and rampaging down Haddon Road towards Pickory Corner and the turning to Youlgreave. Another has him injuring the ringmaster (confirmed by a family eye witness account) and being too dangerous to handle. Local soldiers were on manoeuvres nearby and were called in to help.The elephant was shot dead. But this isn't the end of the story. His body was left on the recreation ground whilst arrangements were made to dispose of it. On the Sunday morning children in their Sunday best climbed on him, including their dog, and had their photograph taken. You can see it in the museum display. A local family story describes how the elephant appeared to come to life. As the climbing children pressed on his stomach full of gases he trumpeted! The timber wagon from the local wood yard had to be brought in to move the body to the local tip. The body was hung in chains from the feet, an ignominious end for a magnificent creature. Again you can see the photo in the museum. A hundred years later the tip where he was buried was prepared for redevelopment, and I was told that his skeleton had broken up and moved down through the culvert at one end of the site. What will archaeologists of the future make of this exotic find ? I worked for an organisation based in the new offices there. We had to create a new address and as it was a nature conservation organisation some of us voted for ' Elephant's Graveyard' in honour of Old Paul.It wasn't taken up. This elephant's story is however celebrated in the museum. If you visit the co-op supermarket in Bakewell, take a minute to look up at the tiled picture on the clock tower at its main entrance. There among the animal market scenes depicted, commemorating the sheep and cattle that used to be sold there, you will see an elephant in a pen. Spare a thought for Old Paul.

Sensible about your feet

As the weather worsens we need to think about how we keep our feet warm and dry. Clogs were the footwear of the working men and women. Practical and almost indestructible, their wooden soles, usually made of alder wood, were both protection and insulation. Clogs and shawls will forever be associated with women mill workers. Agricultural labourers also wore clogs. Some were shod with iron, raising sparks as they struck stone pavements. Others have rubber soles,and were slightly more comfortable to wear. Nowadays they are worn for clog dancing, and decorative patterns, bells and bright colours adorn them. There are still clog factories in West Yorkshire, notably in Calderdale. They have become fashion items in recent decades. When I was younger I lived in Todmorden. Mr Pinnington made clogs to order in his tiny shed of a workshop next to the bus station. I had a couple of pairs made. My black lace up ones were passed on to a friend who was studying to be a gardener. Perfect for outside work in the cold. I still have my fancy red ones, rarely worn but often admired. I had friends in Holland who ordered Lancashire clogs from Mr Pinnington by sending a drawing of the outline of their feet. Talk about coals to Newcastle! Travelling back to Todmorden from Manchester on the train, wearing my clogs, an elderly lady commented "Ee, you are sensible about your feet". Sadly Mr Pinnington's shed was demolished by a bus one day. Luckily he wasn't in it at the time, but he took it as a sign to retire. You can see traditional clogs, with irons on the soles in the Museum's collection. The red ones are my own 'dancing' clogs.

Rag rugs and samplers

As the carpet beetle story develops and unfolds, the good news is that we have been offered storage space, away from the Museum building, to house the items that have been through the freezing process. Our wonderful pest control expert has also found us a generous ice cream manufacturer in Nottingham with spare freezer capacity. This means that the process of freezing the collection will take less time than we had feared. In the meantime, here are some images of items that tie in with the recent Folk Art in Britain exhibition at Tate Britain. The Old House Museum has a wonderful collection of samplers, many with a very local connection. The rag rug in Pitts kitchen has been a great memory jogger with visitors over the years too. Is it time for a revival of this up cycling craft?!

Farmer's boys

This group of images gives an idea of the range of traditional agricultural tools that are part of the Old House Museum's collection. Bakewell still has a Monday livestock market, though the pens are now in a purpose built agricultural business centre rather than the town centre. Sheep and dairy farming are still part of the local economy. Crops and cereals were grown for fodder and the museum's plough and hoe have recently been restored thanks to a grant and some expert attention. The seed fiddle was used to broadcast seed in the twentieth century, using a technique recorded in medieval times. The smock harks back to the nineteenth century, practical and hard wearing workwear, with more than a hint of Thomas Hardy's novels.

In comes the doctor

In comes the doctor, in comes the nurse, in comes the lady with the alligator purse. So the children's rhyme goes. Once upon a time, before the National Health Service, doctors wore a top hat and tails for their home visits. My own grandfather was an Edwardian doctor in Salford and lived long enough to be part of the NHS. When I was younger I often had conversations with people at bus stops and in shop queues who recognised me as one of the family and remembered him with fondness. I have been told that he introduced free school milk in Salford. When this doctor's case and other medical paraphernalia was donated to the Old House Museum, I often wondered how much of it would have been familiar to him.

Model homes and shops

Inspired by a recent trip to the British Folk Art exhibition at Tate Britain, these are some photos of model shops in the children's display in the Old House Museum. There are also a couple of images of models of the Old House and its lath and plaster inner wall. None of these were ever children's playthings in the sense of dolls' houses or miniature shops nowadays. The model shops were often used as part of a window display, especially where the goods sold were perishable, and had to be removed from the window at night.The butcher's shop is a typical example, and the Folk Art exhibition included life size painted plaster models of cuts of meat, including hams and lamb cutlets rather than the miniature examples you can see here.

Gilding the gingerbread

The recent British Folk Art exhibition at Tate Britain included gingerbread moulds. These lovely carved wooden pieces of kitchen equipment could be used to create interestingly shaped biscuits. They were sometimes embellished with gold leaf, the gilt on the gingerbread. Imagine learning your alphabet,or even your kings and queens through a delicious biscuit. You could identify your biscuit by your initials. We can use alphabet pasta and iced biscuits in the shape of letters in the same way nowadays. Bakewell is famous for its puddings, not for the tarts, which were originally invented by Mr Kipling in his factory in Wythenshawe.All the Bakewell bakeries offer both nowadays, having embraced the confusion. Nearby Ashbourne is famous for its gingerbread, a spicy cake recipe reputed to have been passed on by a French prisoner of war, billeted there during the Napoleonic wars.These moulds from the Old House Museum collection predate the Napoleonic wars, and were used to make a spicy biscuit that I think must have been similar to Dutch speculaas. Some food historians describe it as being like flavoured stale bread, so gilding must have disguised a disappointing taste experience! Local foods and recipes are an important aspect of folklore and local identity, and the Bakewell pudding story will no doubt be told in a blog post soon. Finally, the carpet beetle update - waiting for quotes and grants, while packing continues as the decision has been made to freeze everything, including the cottons.

Folk Art In Bakewell and London

The appearance of carpet beetle has made it difficult to explore the costume collection at the Old House Museum in the way that I had hoped when I started this blog. Outfits and items that I had hoped to photograph and write about are packed and ready for the freezer and it will certainly be months before the process is complete. Last week I made a trip to Tate Britain to catch the British Folk Art exhibition there before it finished.There's been a process of evaluating where folk art sits in the scheme of things in the contemporary art world. Jeremy Deller has explored the use of archive film, photos and images as well as calendar customs in his work as an artist. Simon Costin's Museum of British Folklore, which doesn't have a physical home or base, takes folk art further afield through temporary exhibitions. As with all aspects of folk culture, there is always debate as to how to identify and evaluate what it is and what it does. Craft overlaps art, design and architecture and music hall songs overlay traditional ballads. It's a fascinating topic for discussion and the exhibition at the Tate addressed some of these issues without coming to any hard and fast conclusions. I was lucky enough to take a course in folk life studies as an undergraduate and later to study for an MA in Folklore and Cultural Tradition. When the Old House Museum was first planned it was described as a folk life museum. Beamish in the North East, St Fagans in Wales, Shibden Hall in Halifax and more locally places like Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet and Wortley Top Forge were also presenting themselves in this way, showing traditional homes, workshops, interiors and artefacts in a life like context rather than museum cabinets. As I went round the Tate's exhibition I realised that the Old House Museum still maintains this folk life approach. At the Tate there were quilts and samplers, embroideries and patchworks, shop signs and pottery,gingerbread moulds and butter pats,similar to displays in the Old House. We may not have corn dollies and carved ship's figureheads in the Museum but we do have home made toys, rag rugs and White Watson geology plaques. There were even photos of well dressing at Tideswell and scarecrow competitions. The British Folk Art exhibition has had a national and international reach to a huge audience. Over the next few weeks I plan to share some of the things on our doorstep as a way of exploring folk art through the Old House Museum.

Bring Up the Bodies

Recently the Museum caused a social media sensation by offering some of its old mannequins and body parts to a good home. I was reminded of that experience of going viral when we had to dismantle and move the mannequins from the Solar display area a couple of weeks ago. Taking them up into the loft space for storage was a strange and slightly surreal experience as you can see.

The carpet beetle drive continues. If you can offer time to help pack the clothes, ready for freezing, or if you know anyone with a walk in freezer to share, please get in touch with The Old House Museum.

Cotton Tales

The carpet beetle story continues. There's a freezer full of packed clothes in the Museum and volunteers have prepared packages for the next phase. An application is nearly ready to go to AIM, the Association of Independent Museums for their next round of funding. A pest control expert has been to assess and his report is eagerly awaited. It's a huge amount of work and an unexpected task to have to deal with in the middle of the busy summer open season, but it is all progressing as it must thanks to manager Anita Spencer and the volunteers. One piece of good news is that cotton items may not need freezing. There are a lot of them in the collection. It's an everyday, domestic material and many of the clothes are everyday and domestic. Advice is being taken, as cottons and linens can be delicate, especially when the fabrics are old. Hopefully we will be able to wash some of them. If they can cope with dolly tubs and possers, boilers and smoothing irons, hopefully they can cope with some specialist laundering. As a bit of light relief I visited the Cotton Couture exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. These beautiful outfits were commissioned by the Cotton Board In the mid 1950s to promote cotton in its heartland of manufacture. The exhibition runs through until June 2015, so catch it if you can. The wedding dress and cotton lace ensemble, ideal for the mother of the bride, are on show. The lovely turquoise print dress from the late 1950s, early 1960s is one of the most recent items in the Museum's collection and would be snapped up in a vintage shop nowadays.

What's in your wardrobe?

Recent posts have been themed around pests, infestations, vermin and how to keep them out of clothes. The Old House Museum is partly a Tudor house place. Later it was divided into tenement cottages for Sir Richard Arkwright, housing workers from his mill at Lumford in Bakewell. Eventually these cottages were condemned in the mid twentieth century, though one continued to be lived in until the 1960s. In the late 19th century a family called the Pitts lived there. Mr Pitt collected euphemistically named night soil, the contents of the earth closet toilets that were a feature of houses with no mains sewage. When the Bakewell and District Historical Society began the process of renovating and restoring the Old House they uncovered fireplaces and a secret room. At first it was thought it might be a priest hole, but the Gell family who had built the house were not Roman Catholics. Building historians identified this secret room as a garderobe. A garderobe was an inside toilet, usually with a drop into an earth closet. There are some at Haddon Hall which drained to the outside wall of the house, down the limestone bluff the Hall stands on. It was the height of luxury, and those who would have access to a garderobe would have some luxury items among their clothes and outfits. They knew that the smell of ammonia from these inside toilets discouraged clothes moths and insect infestations, so precious furs and silks were hung in the garderobe. You may have guessed the connection, a closet in a bedroom used for hanging clothes. This is the origin of the modern day wardrobe! You can still see the garderobe if you visit the Old House Museum.

Of lice and men

In the last post on this blog I wrote about the recent discovery of carpet beetle at the Old House Museum. In recognition of the centenary of the First World War, there is a display of WW1 uniform, as well as items of WW2 uniform in the museum. Many years ago I remember talking to one of my elderly neighbours.I knew very little about the Great War. I was familiar with the War Poets from English A level, but I hadn't yet discovered Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. My neighbour was very familiar with the realities and described how she got rid of the lice in her brother's uniform when he returned home on leave, running a lighted match down the seams. The trenches were full of all kinds of vermin, from body lice to rats, as well as sewage and the rotting corpses of men and animals. It's unbearable to think of it, and infection quickly set in to any wounds or bites. Uniforms could also be boiled to clear them of lice, but it didn't get rid of the eggs, which soon hatched out and reinfested the soldiers on their return to the front. Today, August 4th 2014, marks the centenary of the declaration of war. You may light a candle of commemoration tonight. When you do, spare a thought for the mothers, sisters and wives who tried to make things more bearable for their men in uniform.

Feathers, frass and freezers

The Old House Museum in Bakewell has a fascinating costume and textile collection. It's the reason I started writing this blog, so I could share it with a wider audience than those who make it up the hill from the centre of town to visit and see it for themselves. In the last couple of weeks something every curator dreads has happened. Carpet beetle has been spotted in the museum. The Old House Museum is no stranger in dealing with disaster and set back is a positive way. The Museum building was rescued 60 years ago when a local surveyor spotted a call to tender for the demolition of a condemned block of tenement cottages, in a local newspaper. He recognised that part of the house was Tudor and the rest had been redeveloped by Arkwright. The Bakewell and District Historical Society was formed to manage the rescue of this architectural treasure and the rest, as they say, is history. So carpet beetles and their larvae, the charmingly named woolly bears, whilst unwelcome guests, are an opportunity for us all, volunteers and visitors to learn more about them, where they have come from and how to get rid of them.

An area of the solar display area has been given over to checking and packing clothes on display that may be affected. Two freezers are on order and websites and local experts are sharing their knowledge. Information is on show for visitors and plans have been made for training sessions for volunteers.

If you are reading this and are able to help, get in touch with the Old House either through this blog or via their website.

I have mentioned the freezers, frass is the excrement, as fine as grains of sand, and the feathers were part of the boa where we think the infestation began. The beetles can get in through birds' nests and there are jackdaws who nest in the eaves each season, in spite of being discouraged from doing so. The carpet beetle feeds on animal proteins so fur, feathers, natural history collections and the like are particularly at risk. I am guessing that the mild wet winter and recent hot weather has encouraged the infestation too. I'll share updates on the situation on this blog and over the next few posts I will explore some historic ways of getting rid of pests who take up residence in clothing!

Dressing up dolls

News of the Old House Museum's collection of clothes travelled as far as Japan recently, and two ladies came to research some of the dresses and to take photos for a forthcoming book to be published in Japan. Very exciting!

This doll, a recent donation, sat in a corner of the textile room. Her appearance took me back. Many years ago I had a Japanese friend who bought and restored Victorian and Edwardian dolls. She also sourced ladies' outfits of the era, often worn and torn. She then had clothes made for the dolls in these authentic fabrics in an appropriate style. These were taken back to Japan to sell to doll collectors there. It was fascinating to see these lovely dolls come to life. While some were originally intended as toys, others were literally mannequins, used to display and advertise the latest London or Paris fashions for dressmakers working elsewhere. Definitely a la mode.

In the swim

The sun is shining and it's hotter than July. In a shady corner of the Old House Museum, this knitted swimsuit is part of a forties display. Moss green, it's a far cry from the vibrant swimwear you find on sale today. Even a vogue for retro swimming costumes doesn't go as far as reviving knitted versions. Some of you may remember the woolly weight of water in a costume like this, often hand knitted for children. Once a suntan became a symbol of leisure and luxury, no longer associated with outdoor and farm work, then swimwear became a fashion item. From the glamorous upholstered costumes of the 1950s to the bikinis of the 1960 nowadays there's a huge range of swimwear or lack of it to choose from. Who could forget the swim hats of the 1960s, essential for maintaining glamour whilst protecting the perm. Serious and sporty swimwear follows fashion trends too. The outdoor pools and lidos of the 1920s and 30s created a desire for outdoor swimming. Park Hall Pool in Little Hayfield was my favourite, and there's still the increasingly popular Hathersage Pool in this part of Derbyshire. Wild swimming is in the news nowadays too and in a spell of good weather the rivers and waterfalls beckon.

Make Do and Mend

There's a huge interest in craft again among younger people. Recycling, upcycling, remaking and redesigning clothes and knitwear, using vintage patterns and fabrics to create something that reflects the individual. It's the direct opposite of high street fashion where everyone looks and dresses the same. Back in the 1940s a make do and mend approach was a necessity, not a creative choice or an expression of individuality.There's a corner of the Old House Museum in Bakewell that reflects a time when everyone darned socks, turned up hems, let out blouses and remade dresses. Amongst the collection are buttons and templates for patchworks, embroidery threads and sewing kits. We would love to see young people using the museum's collections to explore craft and creativity. They could take inspiration from the clothes in the collection. They could explore the possibilities of using traditional techniques and sewing kits. We are hoping to make links with local schools and students to do this. If you know anyone who might be interested, please contact the Old House Museum through this blog.