Issue 5 - Ironbridge Gorge Museum

Volunteer NEWSLETTER
ISSUE FIVE
The IRONBRIDGE GORGE MUSEUM TRUST Limited Charity Reg No. 503717-R
SPRING GREETINGS
Well, it’s May already and time seems to be going by
very fast! We’ve had some lovely weather over Easter
which has meant some very busy days for the
Museum! We have also welcomed quite a few new
volunteers across the sites, and they have been made
to feel very welcome by all staff and volunteers, so
thank you for that. All sites are now open, and many
of you are working very hard to make sure that all
our visitors have a wonderful time; we couldn’t do it
without you, so thank you for that too!
We’ve had a few changes in the Volunteering
Department, some new staff for you to meet and
we’ve said goodbye to Jodie. She has moved on to
pastures new, and we wish her a very fond farewell,
I know she’ll miss a lot of you just as much as we
miss her!
Art at Blists Hill
VICTORIAN TOWN
Every week a group of artists meet at Blists Hill,
called The Art Mechanics. One of these artists, David
Poxon kindly agreed to share this painting with you, a
pure watercolour painting which is one of a series of
paintings David has produced of Mortons Ironworks,
Blists Hill.
David was born in the Industrial West Midlands
where his formative years were spent in the fiery
shadows of the great rolling mills and Foundries
that once stretched for miles between Birmingham
and Wolverhampton. His early interest in painting
was stimulated by a childhood trip to London to ‘see
the art’ where he was smitten by the great works of
Turner in the Tate.
We have had two lovely coffee mornings, the next
is on May 25th. We’d love to see you and catch up,
so pop in if you can. In March we heard from Shane
Kelleher, IGMT’s new Archaeologist and this month,
Traci Dix-Williams will be talking to us. They are very
informal, but it’s a good chance to meet other
volunteers from our different sites - or ones from
your sites whom you never met.
Finally, I if your ID card is getting near to its expiry
date or is out of date already, pop it back to me and
I’ll issue you a new one. Your ID card gets you into
every IGMT Museum free of charge with a guest, so
it’s well worth having.
Lucy
Volunteer Coordinator
SOCIAL EVENTS
Coffee mornings 10am -12pm
at the Volunteer Centre...
cake and conversation
l Wednesday 25th May with Traci
Dix-Williams, Director of Operations
l Monday 27th June
l Friday 22nd July
l Wednesday 24th August
The painting above, named Men Worked Here, is now
being exhibited in the Mall Gallery London (April) as
part of the R.I. (Royal Institute) annual exhibition, but
David and his fellow Art Mechanics are holding an
exhibition in May at the Volunteer Centre, Blists Hill.
The exhibition will run from 14th May for two weeks,
and will be open Monday to Friday 10-4. You could
also meet some of the artists too, so come and see if
you’re around.
www.davidpoxon.co.uk
DAVID POXON R.I., R.B.S.A
Ironbridge Volunteer Newsletter Issue Five Page 1

Trip to
Ditherington Flax Mill
Sunday 22nd May
World Heritage Site
Exhibition and Festival
The friends of Ditherington Flax Mill invite you all for
a guided tour of the Mill Buildings on Sunday 22nd
May. This is a lovely opportunity to see Ditherington
before any major work takes place on the site. It’s a
wonderful collection of buildings with a great story
to tell. If you’d like to come along, we will meet at
Ditherington at 11.00am on Sunday 22nd May.
We’ll meet our guides and be taken on a tour of the
buildings.
If you’d like to come along, give me a ring or an email
so that I can get an idea of numbers. I’m afraid we
can’t provide transport, but if anyone would like to
come along and is struggling, let me know.
New Staff
We bid a fond farewell to Jodie last month, and now
have two new (well, new to us!) faces for you to get
to know; Mary and Angela. Both have worked for
IGMT for some time, so some of you will already
know them, but here’s some more information:
Mary Richards
‘My name is Mary
Richards and I’ve
been working as an
Education Officer at
Blists Hill Victorian
Town for just over five
years. Along with Hugh
Simmons, I developed
and delivered educational workshops and family
holiday activities. My main responsibility has been
organizing the Victorian School lessons in Stirchley
Board School for our volunteer School Ma’ams to
teach or assist with. In our new job-share role Angela
Evans and I will still be helping to deliver the school
lessons and other workshops when needed as well
as supporting Lucy in the Volunteer Centre. So you
may see one of us when you visit and I look forward
to meeting you.’
Angela Evans
‘I have worked in the
Education Department of
the Museum since 2005,
working across all main
museum sites as well as
in schools, to develop
and deliver educational
workshops and family
holiday drop-in activities. Part of my duties have been
in an administrative capacity in the Coalbrookdale
office. The variety of the role has always been
challenging and stimulating, and I now look forward
to combining it with the new experiences of work in
the Volunteer Centre and getting to know you all.’
This year is the 25th Anniversary celebration of the
Ironbridge Gorge being designated a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. As well as the World Heritage Site
Festival in September, there will be an exhibition in
the Footprint Gallery, Fusion at Jackfield Tile
Museum celebrating the journey to restoration, the
changing landscape and the people that have helped
make this area the ‘most extraordinary in the world’.
We are producing a large piece of art for this,
featuring small squares (7” x 7”) of fabric decorated
by different people to create a large mural. We’re
looking for people to help with this by producing a
square, and to man the galleries when the exhibition
opens to talk to people and help with workshops and
activities too. If you’ like to create a square, give me a
ring and I’ll send you one. They can be in any media,
knitted, painted, sewn or collaged, whatever you
like and we have blank square and ones with letters
on for you to choose. There are 178 squares, so I’d
be VERY happy to hear from you! Also, if you’re
involved in any community groups and may like me
to come and bring some squares along to them, I’d
be very happy to.
Ironbridge Volunteer Newsletter Issue Five Page 2

Volunteer case study
VOLUNTEERS STORY
‘When I visited Blists Hill for the first time in many
years I was very impressed by the quality of the
re-construction and displays in the various shops
but as a clockmaker it struck me as odd that very
few of the clocks on display were working.
At the end of the nineteenth century it would have
been very important to display the correct time as
many people, did not possess a watch and the radio
time signal and quartz timekeeping were but a
fanciful dream. I enquired about the clocks and
learned that they were donated, in very poor
condition and unfortunately there was no one to
repair them or funds to pay to do so. I already
work voluntarily, as a trustee of the Antiquarian
Horological Society and as treasurer of the local
branch of the British Horological Society, so I
volunteered to get the clocks working as this would
be another way of raising public awareness of
timekeeping.
Name: Brynn Hodgson
Volunteer since: 2007
Role: Clockmaker
Role Outline: Restoring
and repairing the
clocks at Blists Hill
Victorian Town.
Perhaps in time it will be possible to add another
trade to the impressive collection at Blists Hill, with
a small clock shop, showing the tools and techniques
of the late nineteenth century. Such shops and
workshops were a very familiar sight in most towns
and many villages before the arrival of other means
of timekeeping.
Brynn Hodgson MBHI
www.sstaffsclocks.com
Quarry Games Day
Calling all competitors
for the Shrewsbury
Quarry Games!
This year in June, Shrewsbury Carnival is taking
place, and has a special Victorian theme of “Victorian
Fun and Games”.
As part of this, teams will take part in a fun range of
recreated Victorian games such as a Three legged
race, Egg & Spoon Race and Sack race. To kick off
the celebrations, the 1st heat is at Blists Hill on
Saturday 28th May and the grand final is in the
Quarry at Shrewsbury on Saturday 18th June. We
have a team of 12 staff taking part, but we are in need
of more people to help out, a team captain and if lots
of people are interested, we could even enter another
team. Contact me if you’d like to take part.
Although most of my work for the Victorian Town
is necessarily off-site, in my workshop, I very much
enjoy the visits to set up the clocks and check that
all is well with those that I have restored. The
‘shopkeepers’ generally take a great interest in the
clocks and are happy to see them functioning
properly. On most of my visits to Blists Hill I meet
the curator, Ian Pritchard, who keeps me in touch
with progress and problems with the clocks. While
my visits are primarily for the return of a working
clock, Ian never fails to ensure that I also depart with
a non-working clock, needing my attention.
I already had a busy schedule as a working
horologist, in Codsall, researching and restoring
antique clocks from the eighteenth and nineteenth
century, for customers, so the restoration of the
clocks at Blists Hill needed to fit in with my other
work. But over a period of time most of the clocks
have now been brought back to life and I believe
this adds to the reality of the displays in the shops.
They also provide a reminder of timekeeping in an
earlier age and hopefully spark an interest in learning
a little more about clocks and their development.
CONTACT DETAILS
Thanks again for all your
hard work, if you have any
comments, suggestions or input
for the Newsletter, give me a ring on
01952 601044 or email
lucy.andrews-manion@ironbridge.org.uk
Ironbridge Volunteer Newsletter Issue Five Page 3