A Change at Dartmouth Museum
Marigolds, scrubbing brushes and buckets of hot soapy water have replaced exhibits in one of the rooms at Dartmouth Museum as the dedicated team of volunteers carry out a transformation.
Stripped of its cases of artefacts, the room in Duke Street above the Butterwalk is an architectural gem – panelled walls with not a straight line anywhere and the most beautiful patterned plaster ceiling.
It is an ancient building – nearly 400 years old - and its incredible condition attracts visiting architects from around the world.
The museum is housed in part of the building and the plans now taking shape with the cleaning and redesigning of one of its rooms, are setting in motion the creation of a fantastic resource that will chart the maritime history of Dartmouth.
The volunteers are lucky to have, among their number, Angela White (pictured with Brian Langworthy), a highly experienced museum designer. She designed the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and the museum at Britannia Royal Naval College, and has been involved with Dartmouth Museum for 10 years.
Angela has used her wealth of experience to draw up the new design of the room. She said: “The room was crammed with cases accumulated over many years, and most were filled with a collection of bits and bobs that had nothing much to connect them. They didn’t tell a story.
“But now, stripped of everything, we have a room that looks like a captain’s cabin, and that fits perfectly with our plan to create a room detailing Dartmouth’s maritime history. We want to care for the artefacts and to be able to use them as an educational tool, while doing justice to this beautiful room.”
The museum has dozens of model ships, and these will be central to the new maritime exhibit. “All the ships’ models will be hung on a time line,” Angela explained. “By grouping them together we get a bigger story, and by bringing in other artefacts we start to see how each item has played its part in the history of Dartmouth – in the whole picture.”
The ship time line will take visitors back to the time of the Crusades, then bring them through the Dartmouth of Chaucer and Hawley, Elizabeth I, Drake, Raleigh, Charles II, the Mayflower, the triangular trade era with Newfoundland and Portugal, Queen Victoria, and the founding of Britannia Royal Naval College.
“We’re bringing the history alive wherever possible with quotes – personal stories and recollections,” Angela said. “We have words from Richard the Lionheart, from Chaucer, from Elizabeth I who describes the ‘wonderful Devon men’ who captained her ships. “Queen Victoria loved Dartmouth and it is thanks to her that the town has its Royal Regatta. It has been a painstaking job to gather all the quotes that we plan to display, but it personalises the history and is so important.
“It also leads us on nicely to our next project, which would be a room charting the town’s social history, but that is something for another day – if funds are willing…”
The refurbishment is costing £46,000 – a bill met by a tremendous amount of fundraising, by a donation from Devon County Council, and by funds from the Henley Trust. But there are no new exhibits, as Angela explained: “These are all exhibits we have had for a long time, but we are showing them off to greater effect. The ship time line will show the evolution of ships very clearly. The finest models will be in an island display case in the centre of the room, but we want more children to come and enjoy the museum, so there will be big drawers of artefacts for the children to handle.
“I am very excited – it is so much fun getting the room all together and seeing the history taking shape.”
Angela has lived in Dartmouth for 18 years. She has a degree in graphics and illustration, and worked in the theatre and television for many years before turning her attention to museums.
“I love making the two-dimensional three-dimensional,” she said. “And I love bringing history to life through people, through the stories of those who lived in the past. The human touch stops history being dry, dusty, fusty and boring.”
But for now the volunteers are working away with elbow grease and dedication, removing hundreds of years of grime! Brian Langworthy, the museum curator, was up a ladder scrubbing away when I called in to find out about the project.
“Our volunteers are brilliant – they are working so hard,” he said. “It is a painstaking job, particularly the cleaning of the ships, and the volunteers are working all hours to get this project finished ready for the museum to be reopened in the spring.
“We would love more to join us, now and when the museum reopens. We want to attract more visitors and need more people to come and join our team, to talk to the visitors and make sure they get the most out of their visit.
“If anyone would like to get involved, just pop in and see us. It’s an exciting time to be involved with Dartmouth Museum.”
First Published December 2009 By The Dart