Oswestry Museum Opens.....

[Community Online 65]

Oswestry Museum opens this Friday at 10am.

More information in the calendar post here

[Maggie 65]

Oswestry Museum looking good today. Lots of shiny new display cases are quickly filling up with stuff. We might not have had any time to do fancy interpretation, but it is amazing what local people are bringing in for display and I am now confident that the opening is going to be a great success. A year ago the guys in Oswestry Heritage Forum meetings promised that Oswestry would finally have a town museum and the promise has been kept, thanks to the town council, a market towns initiative grant and lots of hard work. I haven't been this tired since I was a student and burning the candle at both ends.

Exhibitions from the 3 parishes area include:

Ifton Mine photographs

The Orthopaedic Hospital

Welsh Guards Museum (Park Hall)

Old Oswestry Hillfort

Battle of Crogen (we have the film that was made by this project)

and what I suppose we should call an eclectic collection of stuff.

Thats not counting all the things from other areas around Oswestry

I was amazed today to see an enormous billboard advertising the split up and sale of the Quinta Estate. This is been part of the Oswestry Library Collection and has been loaned to us.

Please join us on Friday and help us celebrate an exciting new venture in the area.Open 10 a.m. Friday 2nd March, then we will be open on Wednesday Friday and Saturday (10-5) for definite and try to be open on Thursdays once we get more volunteers.

The museum is Free to enter, and is run entirely by volunteers with running costs from any grants or contributions we can get. Very definitely run by the community for the community but with enormous support from the Town Council who have given us the rooms rent free for 5 years.

WHILE YOU ARE IN TOWN ALSO CATCH THE EXHIBITION IN THE QUBE

Jason Hicklin: An Etcher in the Landscape.

We are having 2 of these sculptures in Chirk Bank. I think they are very beautiful, but see what you think. (2nd March-2nd April)

[Maggie 65]

Today we had speeches and council and tea and cake in the new museum. It was a triumph that we pulled off in a short time with just volunteers and things that local people have lent to us...But come along and see what you think. This is OUR museum, it will continue to change and grow, so the museum team need your input, what you know, what you have that could be shown to others (local collections of stuff), and if you could get involved as a volunteer.

[Simple Simon 36]

A very interesting collection of items. I remember collecting various fossils as a school project.

There's plenty of room for extra bits: Offa's Dyke, the old railway lines to Whittington, Ellesmere and Gobowen, the evolution of the cattle market, the old Oswestry football ground (down at the bottom of Victoria Street), the old bus companies - Crosville, Vags etc.

But credit where credit's due: A fantastic effort by all involved. I love all those old photographs of Oswestry as it used to be and how it is now. Well done to everyone.

[Maggie 65]

Thanks very much Simon. Its been a lot of hard work and I am shattered, but worth it, and really this is where it all starts from. Remember we will always make a place for any displays of old photographs from Gobowen (I have noticed you were collecting these). I personally would like to start thinking about a display about transport, because Oswestry has been key place in an important route way since at least the iron age. Coach-routes, Telfords A5, canals, railways, roads, engineering developments in Oswestry (rolling stock for railways but also busses)... could tell a very interesting story.

[Simple Simon 36]

On the subject of railways, as a kid I used to live in Llewyn Road in Oswestry and have vague memories of large heavy diesel trains pulling trucks into Oswestry along the Gobowen line.

Before Morrisons/Somerfield/Gateway, the large car park and bus stop that whole area was used as sideings for the railway. I remember a stone wall behind which rows of trucks stood in line. Station Road went from Beatrice Street down to the bottom of Oswald Road.

I remember when they knocked down all the old victorian buildings on the other side of Llewyn Road, including a pub. I build dozer actually fell into the old cellar. As a kid I used to think those large diggers were yellow dinosaurs.