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The Collections ...
Contemporary
prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs, however, recall those quiet
scenes against which all the local dramas of a small borough were played.
Since prehistoric times the economy of
the Vale has depended on agriculture, and from the i7th century the parts
nearest to Evesham have been noted for their market gardens. With the
coming of the Oxford,
Worcester, and Wolverhampton Railway in 1852, fruit and vegetables from
the Vale became famous. Many of the old-time implements connected with
market gardening are preserved in the museum among all kinds of
agricultural bygones representing the daily work of the Vale. Some of
those relics were in use until after the Second World War and a continual
search for further specimens is conducted by the Vale of Evesham
Historical Society. The museum may soon be the only place where
once-familiar objects, like the 'pot hamper' (a basket for fruit) and the
sprout net, can be seen. The tools and products of local craftsmen such as
the wheelwright, the blacksmith, the cobbler, the saddler, and the
thatcher, who in their different ways met the needs of local farmers, are
carefully collected and preserved in the museum. There is a particularly
fine set of wheelwright's tools from a business that flourished across the
road on Merstow Green. Ornamental shop signs and bill heads illustrate the
contribution of the small shopkeeper to the old community, and the
housewife's skills of sewing, dairying, and laundering are not forgotten;
bygones from the home are continually sought by the Society. Local boys,
however, sometimes had a chance to see the wider world when king and
country called them to arms, and the museum has a large display of the
weapons and uniforms they used.
The way of life for which they fought has
given place to another but in the museum something of it is kept safe for
the future. |
