Another Bradford-made Clock
The Museum now has a third clock that was made in Bradford on Avon.
This one, signed by Edward Hopkins, is just the face and movement, without the long case in which it would have originally been housed. It has a brass face that is decorated with figures representing the four seasons in the spandrels (corners). Behind the face is an eight-day movement that drives hours, minutes...
Read MoreMuseum re-opening for 2023
After a brief winter break, Bradford on Avon Museum is starting the New Year by re-opening from 14.00 on Thursday 19th January 2023.
We wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year
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Visiting the...
Read MoreNew Museum book: Rowley-Wittenham
The deserted village of Rowley is now represented by earthworks just to the south of the modern village of Westwood. It and another adjacent manor called Wittenham became depopulated during the late medieval and Tudor periods and eventually, in 1882, the land was transferred from the Hundred of Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire to the parish of Farleigh Hungerford in Somerset.
In...
Read MoreNew Museum book: A vanished world
Following on from Dan Farrell’s histories of Bradford on Avon’s pioneering rubber industry, Riding on rubber and Rubber town, comes Margaret Dobson’s social history of the works and the way it dominated the life of the town.
A vanished world is on sale at Ex Libris bookshop in the Shambles and will be available in the Museum when it...
Read MoreClosing for the winter break
As usual at the end of November, Bradford on Avon Museum has closed for its short winter break.
This is our opportunity to do some maintenance, cleaning and touching up the paintwork. Although it is getting to be more and more difficult in our small space, it may be possible to make some changes to the display cases and squeeze in a few more objects. It is also an opportunity to...
Read MoreArchaeological work at Holt and at Belcombe Court, Bradford on Avon
Home Croft, Holt
Members of the Museum’s Research Group, led by Rob Arkell, have been carrying out investigations at two local sites over the last year.
Earthworks in Home Croft, the field just over the southern fence of the Courts Garden in Holt, suggested the site of early village houses and perhaps the original Manor House. We have carried out...
Read MoreRestricted opening times in June
Sadly, the lack of availability of Volunteer Stewards in June means that Bradford on Avon Museum will have to restrict our opening times a little for that month. The Museum will only be open on the afternoons of Thursday, Friday and Sunday 14.00 to 16.00 as well as mornings and afternoons on Saturday 10.30 to 12.30 as 14.00 to 16.00. This includes opening over the Jubilee...
Read MoreRe-opening at last!
More than two years has passed since the Museum closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, at last, we have finally been given the green light to open by Wiltshire Council, the owner of the building in which the Museum resides.
We resume normal service on Thursday 19th May -normal except that we have reduced our hours by not opening on Wednesdays. During the two year closure...
Read MoreNew Booklet: The 1841 Map
In the late 1830s the Bristol surveyor George Culley Ashmead (1801-1895) was commissioned to survey the parish of Bradford (then including Atworth, Holt, Limpley Stoke, South Wraxall and Winsley too) which was published in 1841. The survey was for the Tithe Apportionment, to determine who was liable to pay tithes (a tax) to the church. The tithes were to be commuted from goods...
Read MoreNew Museum booklet: Bradford on Avon 1500-1700
This booklet in our more detailed and referenced Monograph Series follows up on Ivor and Pam Slocombe’s previous volume about the Medieval town, covering the developments over the next 200 years during the reigns of the Tudor and Stuart dynasties when the woollen cloth industry was growing.
Profusely illustrated as usual and crammed with detailed and well-researched...
Read MoreNew acquisition: 18th century portrait of a Bradford on Avon clothier
Filling a gap in Bradford on Avon’s collection relating to the woollen industry that made the town as it is today, the Museum has recently acquired this early eighteenth century oil painting of John Bailward (1677-1742). Bailward was a local man, from a Wingfield family, who was involved with the great clothier families at the time when west Wiltshire was the centre of fine...
Read MoreOnline lecture by Michael Wood
Bradford on Avon Museum, jointly with the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes and the Saxon Church of St Laurence in Bradford, is co-hosting an online lecture by the well-known historian Michael Wood on “King Æthelstan and the making of England” on 5th May 7.30-9.00 pm. Æthelstan (c894– 939) is regarded as having been the first...
Read MoreA Year On …
It is now a full year since Bradford on Avon Museum closed its doors to the public on 15th March 2020 (the Ides of March!). We are told that the earliest that museums will be allowed to reopen is the 17th May, but that depends on circumstances prevailing at the time. We will not wish to risk reopening until we believe it is absolutely safe to do so, as our space is so small that...
Read MoreTwo New Books from Bradford on Avon Museum
While the Museum has been closed the Publications Group has, socially distanced of course, been busy and we have two new books to offer you.
First is Rubber Town by Dan Farrell of the Moulton Bicycles Company. Following on from the success of Dan’s Riding on Rubber book, which appeared in the wake of bringing the Iron Duke calender machine back to...
Read MoreNew acquisition: a Roman silver signet ring
The Museum has added to its collection of Roman objects with the acquisition of a Roman finger ring, made of silver and still having its ‘jewel’ of opaque blue glass that has been engraved with a genius figure. It is a fairly hefty thing, weighing 18g, and probably belonged to a man -a piece of Roman bling! It was found in Broughton Gifford by a metal detectorist, declared as...
Read MoreThe Museum is closed, but it is still active …
Although Bradford on Avon Museum itself has been closed by the Covid-19 pandemic since mid-March, there is still some activity going on in the background. The Museum has recently acquired a set of Frobisher Resistivity Meter equipment for carrying out non-invasive archaeological exploration by using geophysics. A grant from the Bradford Area Board of Wiltshire Council helped us buy it....
Read MoreThe Museum is still closed
Restrictions on the use of the library building in which Bradford on Avon Museum is located mean that the Museum is unable to re-open yet. For the last seven months, not even the Museum’s Honorary Curator has been allowed to go in. Even now, he can have an hour, by booking an appointment. It is very frustrating!
So, regrettably, it does not seem likely that we will open...
Read MoreRe-opening? -Not yet
You may have heard that, as of Saturday 4th July, museums and galleries would be among the categories of establishments that were allowed to re-open. However, much as we would love to welcome visitors again, Bradford on Avon Museum will not be opening just yet.
Although independent, the Museum is situated in a Wiltshire Council library building. The Council has launched a...
Read MoreWhoosh! -a history of Bradford on Avon for children
One-time Trustee of the Museum, Gill Winfield has written a book to help children explore the long and interesting story of Bradford on Avon. Billy and Bella, new residents of the town, are guided through it by the Memory Keeper, who shows them a series of episodes in town life from the Iron Age to modern times, all beautifully illustrated by local artist, Mike Dickinson.
The...
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