A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM

In the 1920s, R R Hutchinson, manager of the Wallingford Westminster Bank, established a small museum in the Free Library, St Leonard's Square. When he moved away in the 1930s, the museum closed and the contents were given to the Town Council for safe keeping.

In 1974 The Wallingford Historical and Archaeological Society (TWHAS) was founded. The society thrived, and the need for a new museum soon became apparent - a place to display the results of research, to deposit excavation finds and to collect local artefacts. TWHAS gained expertise by putting on a series of exhibitions in the Town Hall (left, whilst actively seeking premises for a permanent museum.

In 1977 Flint House became vacant. The owners, the Town Council, agreed to lease it to the Workshop For the Disabled (downstairs) and a Museum (the top two floors). The rent was £1000 per year each. TWHAS did a feasibility study on conversion costs, sought advice from the County Museum on storage and organisation and decided that the Museum was a viable project but should be a Charitable Trust, quite separate from TWHAS. At a Public Meeting in November 1978 a steering committee was appointed - a year later the Trust Deed was signed and the new Trustees appointed the Management Committee.

Meanwhile, work had begun on converting Flint House (pictured here as it was at the time). Central heating was put in, the whole building was rewired, fire alarms and a security system were installed, displays were prepared and the rooms were opened out, which led to the discovery of fine 15th century timber-work. Almost everything was done by volunteers and the project was funded by a continuous jumble sale in the guise of a charity shop: The Museum was due to open on Carnival Day 1980.

Fire!

But on May 1st 1980, a serious fire broke out in Flint Cottage, the adjoining private residence, originally part of the same medieval hall-house. Fire swept through the common roof-space, destroying the ancient timber roof and threatening the whole building. It took eight fire engines many hours to bring it under control – miraculously neither the flint façade nor the timber framing of the building was damaged. Fortunately, the fire was contained and doubly fortunately, the old Hutchinson collection, due to be deposited in the Museum within a few days, had not yet been moved in. It was a moment of great despondency, but the work of re-construction began.

The roof was completely rebuilt, sadly not in its original oak but in softwood as the owners of Flint Cottage were under-insured. At last, on April 18th 1981, Wallingford Museum opened to the public. In September the 'offical' opening took place, to the sound of the guns of the Sealed Knot re-enacting a Civil War skirmish on the Kinecroft opposite. The photo shows Museum Chairman Stephen Whitwell (third from left) and the Mayor Bill Revell processing to the Museum with members of the Sealed Knot for the official opening.

In 1989 history came full circle when the Trustees asked the members of the TWHAS Committee to take on the responsibility for day-to-day management of the Museum, a situation which continues today.

The Big Re-Design

For a decade, the Museum staged ever more ambitious special exhibitions in the back room (the Norreys Room - the one pictured above!). The photo below shows the last of these, the history of Payne and Son, silversmiths and jewellers, which involved constructing a complete shop. At this point we realised that now our permanent displays looked dull and dowdy compared to our special ones, so in 1991, the Committee launched a major fund-raising campaign to make radical changes to the display areas. The Museum closed completely while the first stage of this work was undertaken – the total refurbishment of the main exhibition room (known as the Hutchinson Room), to provide a series of settings in which changing exhibits would be displayed. Centred around a paved and cobbled street/courtyard, it consists of a walk-in shop, with a domestic area and workshop at the rear, plus a pub area, a peep-show of life in the Workhouse and a Church/School area.

With this new room completed, the Museum re-opened to the public in May 1993. Almost immediately work began on the Norreys Room to provide a maze-like series of areas which provide a 'walk through time' - tracing the early history of the town from Saxon times, through the rise of the castle, a 'cloister' denoting religious places and events, and ending up in the 'market place' under the pillars of the 17th century Town Hall. To enhance the experience, this area was designed without captions – instead a continuous narration with music and sound effects carries the visitor through. It also surreptitiously controls the speed of his/her progression, ensuring that there are no traffic jams in the confined corridors!

Nearly all this work was done in-house to the Director's detailed plans (this is his original model for the Norreys Room) by a small team of Museum volunteers, with some professional assistance for texturing walls and floors. The Norreys Room, complete with tape commentary voiced by former BBC announcer Robin Whitting, finally opened in 1995, thus completing the refurbishment and creating the Museum on the first floor as we see it today.

Another ten years passed and then it was time for an even more radical change - in 2004 we were offered a lease on the whole of Flint House - an offer we accepted with enthusiasm!

So in the next year year we extended the Museum to include the ground floor, and moved the main entrance to the front door off the High Street. This effectively doubled our display space, as well as making our presence in the High Street much more prominent. Importantly, it also gave us the ability to offer flat floor access to the ground floor for wheelchair users. Although we can't install a lift or chair-lift because of the historic nature of the building, we can offer some downstairs galleries and now have somewhere where disabled people will be able to view a video of the upstairs exhibitions.

Phase 1 of the Development Project was to get Change of Use Planning Permission and listed building consent to 'break open' the blocked door on the ground floor (see photo), thus linking the two parts of the building. For a progress report on the next phases of the project, see our Plans for the Future pages.