Not Just a Building Site Now…
26 Tuesday Mar 2024
Posted Buildings, Cafe, Uncategorized
in26 Tuesday Mar 2024
Posted Buildings, Cafe, Uncategorized
in18 Monday Mar 2024
Posted Buildings, Uncategorized
inTags
05 Tuesday Mar 2024
Posted Buildings, Fashioning Our World, Fundraising, Special Events, Uncategorized
inTwo striking photographs of our museum as it begins to emerge from the scaffolding in all its restored glory.
Inside, the new display in the temporary exhibition room has been up and running for three weeks already. It is quirky, interesting, made up of old and new and recycled, and is proving to be a draw. well done all concerned.
And not be missed…
The mosaic from Hinton St Mary is one of the most celebrated and iconic survivals from Roman Britain. Discovered (accidentally) in 1963, its central roundel features the bust of a man with the Christian Chi-Rho symbol behind his head, which most scholars have concluded is among the first representations of Jesus Christ from the ancient world. This talk will present some of the ground-breaking results of The British Museum’s on-going archaeological excavations at the site and explore what these tell us about one of the earliest Christian communities in Britain.
This is a fundraising talk for Salisbury Museum (registered charity no 289850)
29 Thursday Feb 2024
Posted Buildings, Uncategorized
inThe old Museum Lecture Hall, was, of course, once the chapel of The College of Sarum St Michael, the teacher training college which closed in the 1970s.
When most of us last saw it, little had been changed since the 1970s and it still looked like a bit like a place of worship, with corbels, appropriate windows, an old (presumably de-consecrated) altar table, a gallery and some memorials.
Much of that will now be gone as it becomes part of a wonderful space to house new displays, including the Giant and the Scout Car, the latter dating from a time when, believe it or not, Salisbury had a motor industry!
The memorials have gone. Into store? Here are some of them…
22 Wednesday Nov 2023
Posted Buildings, Collections, Uncategorized
inOn Saturday, Volunteer librarian Bob Hann, together with four others plus the Director, Adrian, cleared what seemed like hundreds of books from a section of the library.
Asbestos had recently been found round some heating pipes and the bookshelves had to be cleared, though fortunately not the racks which have been covered in plastic. *
The books had to be taken down the stairs to be stacked on and under tables in the former costume gallery, now the new lecture hall.
The men did most of the carrying of books while the rest of the Volunteers cleared the shelves and stacked the books in their temporary home.
It took just over five hours. So, a heartfelt plea…
When the books have to be put back, are there younger, stronger Volunteers who could help? And perhaps a few more who could shorten the task?
*The asbestos was enclosed in the walls behind the bookcases and furniture. Volunteers removing the books were at no risk of coming into contact with, or dislodging, asbestos!
28 Saturday Oct 2023
Posted Buildings, Collections, Salisbury Photographs, Uncategorized
inTags
Some street images are hard to identify. Â Take the archive image here for example. Â Do you recognise this building? Â Of course the big ‘give-away’ here is the street name plate on the side of the building – “Blue Boar Row”. Â The far left of the image shows that it is on the corner where Castle Street is. Â But today the building looks somewhat different.
One can try to read the words on the building front and try to discover the history of this company. It appears to be number 33.
Below is my photograph from 2006. The building has grown in height, an extra floor added. The hung wall tiles have become plain. The windows are different in size. The street name plate is gone. The lamp post with its two protecting stones and the Victorian post box have gone too. The protecting stones have been replaced by metal railings. The rain down-pipe on the right looks remarkably similar.
I conclude that it is basically the same building but very extensively altered. Without the street name plate it would have been very difficult to locate the building in the earlier photograph. Note that numbers 1 to 32 Blue Boar Row apparently no longer exist. Postcode finder says only numbers 33 to 51 exist.
If anyone wants to further study Blue Boar Row, Salisbury museum has a collection of images in the image archive available for study. They show that the extra floor was added in Victorian times. The image below from 1870 shows 33 without the extra floor.
Whereas the image below from 1897 shows 33 on the extreme left, with the extra floor but the lamp post, two protecting stones and Victorian postbox are still there.
Wonderful photographs, subjected to forensic study by Alan Clarke, who, with his team, looks after the museum’s fabulous archive.
Our guess is that the first photograph is 1887, the flags and bunting there suggesting Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, while the 1897 photo was taken at the time of the Diamond Jubilee. So No 33 was extended between those two dates.
During that same period, the Lloyds Bank building was also apparently extended – to the east, from five to eight bays. So many stories in these photos!
23 Monday Oct 2023
Posted Buildings, Past Forward
in19 Thursday Oct 2023
THE SALISBURY MUSEUM EXHIBITIONSÂ |
EXHIBITION CLOSING SOON! Salisbury On Camera: 50 Years of the Salisbury Journal Archive 29 Apr 2023- 29 Oct 2023  Make sure to head down to Salisbury Museum over the next month so you don’t miss out on this fascinating exhibition, Salisbury On Camera: 50 Years of the Salisbury Journal Archive. This exhibition celebrates the first fifty years of this significant archive which starts in 1953 and runs through to 2003. Providing an incredible record of life in the city and surrounding area. This exhibition focuses on major events, fashion, sport, music, environment, buildings, famous visitors, local interests and social history. 244 images have been selected by museum volunteer Ken Smith which have been arranged according to the decade they came from.  |
Politics as Recreation – The Annual Clarendon Lecture, from Professor Chris Given-Wilson, St Andrews University.Â
This year’s Annual Clarendon Lecture will focus on three separate occasions at Clarendon palace in the fourteenth century, in 1317, 1355 and 1370 when the English kings hosted their European contemporaries for talks – a medieval camp David. The main characters being discussed will be Edward II of England, along with King Charles II of Navarre and his brother Philip of Navarre during periods of conflict and especially the Hundred Years War in the later fourteenth century.Â
Clarendon provided a different setting for these meetings away from London and Westminster. This talk will consider the role of the palace in these international diplomatic events.Â
Speaker: Professor Chris Given-Wilson
Chris is a professional Emeritus in Late Medieval History specialising in fourteenth and fifteenth century history. He grew up in the New Forest. Recent works includes a biography of Henry IV and as a general editor of the acclaimed Parliament Rolls of Medieval England online.
Tickets £12 or £9 for Friends of Clarendon Palace or Museum Members.Â
This lecture will be held at Salisbury Methodist Church, Thursday 16 Nov 7pm
Pre-booking essential – book here
The Spectacular Ambitions of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury – A Talk by Tony McAleavyÂ
One of the most extraordinary characters associated with the history of Salisbury was Bishop Roger (1102–1139) who controlled the diocese in the early 12th century and was also the chief advisor to King Henry I.
In today’s terms, Roger was the prime minister and was, after the king, the most powerful person in the country. In this talk Tony McAleavy will describe the life and colourful character of Roger. He will explain the latest research concerning Roger’s role in the building of the Romanesque work at Malmesbury Abbey and his plan to turn Malmesbury into a second cathedral for the bishops of Salisbury which led to a bitter conflict with the Malmesbury monks.
Tony McAleavy studied history at Oxford. He was for many years the schools history adviser for Gloucestershire County Council. In this talk he will draw upon the findings about the career of Roger recently published in a new book about the history of Malmesbury Abbey in the Middle Ages.
This is a fundraising talk for Salisbury Museum (registered charity no 289850)
£9 Members; £12 Non-members
This lecture will be held in The Salisbury Museum Lecture Hall 18 Jan 7.30pm
Pre-booking essential – book here
12 Tuesday Sep 2023
Posted Buildings, Past Forward, Uncategorized
inThe King’s House, The Salisbury Museum, still wrapped in impressive scaffolding.
However, at the Cathedral, for the first time in thirty seven years, the scaffolding will soon be gone.
Buildings like these, centuries old, need great care, effort and finance to keep going.
06 Wednesday Sep 2023
Posted Buildings, Uncategorized
inA while ago we heard about William Cobbett’s ride into Salisbury in 1826.
On 7 September, 1782, exactly two hundred and forty one years ago, John Byng, Retired Colonel of the Foot Guards, 5th Viscount Torrington, rode in to the city from Woodyates. Describing the Woodyates Inn* as “miserable” and the “beds shocking”, he was please to be away early, leaving at 6.30am, having had trouble waking anyone to take payment for his bill.
“Most refreshing was the ride to Sarum, the air so cool and so sweet; and by the way I saw several deer upon the edge of the chase. I was at Sarum in time for the hot rolls and was received at the White Hart civilly and attentively, there shaved and dressed, drank coffee and then went to survey the cathedral.
The close is comfortable and the divines well seated; but the house of God is kept in sad order, to the disgrace of our Church and of Christianity…The churchyard is like a cow common, as dirty and neglected, and through the centre stagnates a boggy ditch.”
Byng goes on to tell us that a new bishop would arrive soon, and it was to be hoped things would improve. Byng also commented on the “stream running through the centre of the town” which he thought was an advantage, but noted that many parts were bricked over, suggesting, he thought, that people must have kept falling in.
John Byng, like Cobbett, published his descriptions of his journeys in ‘Rides Round Britain’ in 1793. One twenty-first century reviewer of a new edition wrote:
“An absolute delight. This book sits firmly in my Top Ten All Time Favourites list and probably occupies a spot in the top 5… The Folio Society edition is quite beautiful and Byng’s late 18th C. diaries of his travels are greatly enhanced by Anne Hayward’s engravings. Full of wonderful (and often amusingly cranky) detail ranging over the price of feed for his horse, the weather as he rode or walked, precisely what he ate at each stop, and of course his opinion on the merit of whatever vista or grand structure he was viewing. Completely fascinating and detailed look at the people who inhabited his world and what daily life was like for many of them. I’ve re-read this book several times and will no doubt do so again. This edition includes maps of each leg of his travels which is a great bonus, particularly for readers who are not UK residents.”
*Later the Shaftesbury Arms. Burned, and subsequently demolished in 1967.