Collection: Sherborne Museum

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  Sherborne Museum was developed from the town’s Historical Society which in the 1960s was particularly active and campaigning on various aspects of local heritage. Several members including Gerald Pitman, David Hunt, Reverend Gordon S. Robinson and Cyril Chester were concerned that the town needed a museum that right from the outset aimed to reflect the history, industry, geology and culture of Sherborne and its surrounding villages. Silk mill owner Frederick Marsden purchased and gifted the Abbey Gatehouse building for the purpose and from 1966-8 its first curator, Joane Edwards, worked constantly to accession items that local people offered.

  Many of these items were gifted by prominent members of the Historical Society, for example, Annie Sidaway and Elizabeth O’Shea. Loans of archaeology were accepted from the Castle Estates and Abbey stonework and tiles from the Vicar of Sherborne and the PCC. The collections have grown organically since the Museum opened in 1968, initially under the impetus of Joane Edwards who expanded on the agricultural and social artefacts and negotiated the loan of the botanical drawings from Ruth Fyson in 1971.

  Her successor Marjorie Rogers raised money to purchase the C17th town tokens in 1982. Since then the museum has continually developed its collections of art and images, textiles and items relating to social and industrial history.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2022

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  Geology: Collected mainly by private individuals across the mixed strata of the Sherborne scarps and valleys; principally limestone, sandstone, Yeovil sands, Forest Marble; over 155 examples of local fossils mainly from the Middle Jurassic, with some Late Jurassic and Cretaceous items. Includes several good examples of polished ammonites and Marston Marble.

  Archaeology: Includes significant contributions from Joseph Fowler, Charles Bean and from Sherborne Boys’ School digs led by James Gibb and John Leach in the late 1960s. Items, mainly flints and pottery, associated with early settlement patterns from the Palaeolithic through the Romano-British to the medieval period, and from more recent excavations including Fosters Field, Nether Compton and Paddock Garden sites.

  Items from Sherborne Abbey and its associated monastery as well as from the now demolished parish church of All Hallows. Human remains (bone and skull fragments) recovered from drainage ditch passing through monks’ former cemetery in 1968. Medieval wall painting c. 1480 discovered among several other panels in Tudor Rose Cottage, Long Street, featuring Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, with the attributes of John Schorn.

  Items from the two Sherborne Castles including artefacts relating to the Civil War, the sieges of the Old Castle and traces of troop encampments in the local area.

  The coin collection includes a major set of C17th trade tokens, produced in the town by local merchants, and other coinage (the Sherborne Halfpenny and the SS Johns Almshouse farthing for the poor).

  Natural History: Small natural history collection featuring historic birds’ egg and shell collections. Three annotated collages created by Ruth Gervis, the children’s book illustrator who was a local art teacher and an early member of the Board. Collection of 194 botanical watercolours of local flora; the early work of Sherbornian Diana Ruth Fyson (nee Wilson 1886-1969) who became a significant contributor to the botany of the Southern Indian Hill Stations. There is an associated archive relating to her life and work, donated by her descendants.

  Herbarium of 594 specimens collected by pupils from Sherborne Boys’ School in the early C20th.

  Textiles: Including accessories, over 1011 items, mainly from 1850–1940. Includes groups from local donors: Lady Thornton (Georgian waistcoats), Florence Emily Miles (Georgian silks including brocades to designs by Anna Maria Garthwaite), Lady Jose Wilson (Victorian infant clothing and white work) and Elizabeth Carey (Edwardian children’s clothing). Many items are handmade locally by farming families or produced by local dressmakers and tailors. There is also a collection of labourers’ smocks and working women’s sun bonnets.

  Several items relate to the Sherborne Pageant of 1905, and there is also a group of authentic and vintage costumes donated by the Sherborne Amateur Players.

  There are items of school and Civil Defence uniforms. Of particular significance are the early C18th linen wall hanging and 4 silk banners from the Sherborne Old Friendly Society.

  Archives: Deeds and wills from the C17th–C19th including indentures and property deeds relating to prominent townspeople; a collection of records from the Abbey Pharmacy of over 40 prescription books and pharmacopoeia, donations from the Sherborne Urban District Council following the reorganisation of local government in 1974; a second tranche was donated between 2005-10; maps from various donors; a large collection of architectural plans and drawings from the C19th and C20th; a large collection of printed material, postcards and ephemera; accounts and letterbooks from Westbury Silk Mill 1760-80 accessioned in 1968; the Foster’s Grammar School Archive accessioned in 1992; the Sherborne Historical Society Archive and a large reference library.

  Photographic archives consist of two main collections donated by Gerald Pitman and David Hunt both of which include work by town photographers Adam Gosney and the Chaffins; 1500 glass plate negatives and positives; transparencies and lantern slides. Many other photographs from individual donations by local people.

  Industrial and social history: Items associated with local agriculture, thatching, leatherwork and saddlery, willow working, carpentry, silversmithing, wheelwrighting, public houses and brewing, the silk mills, gloving, the gasworks, tanneries, dairies, railway, local businesses, organisations, schools and societies in the town and public health.

  Domestic items including kitchenware, household, china, Bakelite, toys and games. Of particular interest is the Victorian dolls’ house modelled on Sherborne House and which has featured in books and television programmes.

  Items relating to the two World Wars and the town’s involvement including a large collection of medals and military and nursing badges.

  Intangible heritage: Items relating to unique local customs and festivals such as Pack Monday Fair, Teddy Roe’s Band, the Bonfire Boys and the Sherborne Carnival. There is also a small collection of apotropaic items found concealed in the fabric of buildings (dried cat, shoes, hat, almanac) now recorded on the Concealed/Revealed database.

  An extensive oral history created by Christine Stones in the 1970s, and translated onto CD by past curator Eric Webber which captures unique memories of domestic service, schooldays, the First and Second World Wars, the Bombing of Sherborne, The Pageant, Pack Monday and other significant events and local places.

  Art: Includes oils painted by local artists such as William Anstice Brown, and watercolours by Mabel Wickham and Ann Moorse.

  A large collection of reproduction prints and engravings (mainly late C19th) of all aspects of the town’s architecture, internal and external, donated by Gerald Pitman.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2022

  Licence: CC BY-NC