{"id":173,"date":"2015-08-04T14:57:08","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T13:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martonvillage.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=173"},"modified":"2019-04-14T10:08:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T09:08:09","slug":"story-of-the-museum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/?page_id=173","title":{"rendered":"Story of the Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"museum<\/a><\/p>\n

Marton Museum of Country Bygones<\/strong> owes its existence to the passion and doggedness of just one man, George Tims.\u00a0 George was an inveterate collector of things great and small from a very early age, a habit he acquired from his mother. He grew up in Leamington but always had an interest in \u00a0rural life, encouraged possibly by the fact that there was a farm in the family.\u00a0 Many items from both his mother\u2019s collection and the family farm found their way eventually into George\u2019s hands.\u00a0 In 1952 George and his wife Aliki settled in Marton at no. 7, The Orchard.\u00a0 His collection was housed in garden sheds at first, later spreading into the spare bedroom and other parts of the house.\u00a0 George was an active member of the Church and when the vicar, the Rev Alfred Gardner, heard about his overflowing collection he offered him the use of two small rooms above the stables behind the (then) vicarage.\u00a0 George used this area for storage and allowed friends and acquaintances to visit his \u201cmuseum\u201d.\u00a0 George was finally able to create a proper Museum in 1964 when a Mr Russell, who had farmed at Hall Farm in the village prior to the farmhouse having been converted into two dwellings but had retained some brick outbuildings, offered these to George for his collection and to use as a Museum.\u00a0 This gave George sufficient space (for the time being at least) and also enabled him to add some much larger items to the collection such as ploughs, hay rakes, harrows, carts etc. \u00a0Thus began Marton Museum of Country Bygones.<\/p>\n

The official opening<\/strong> was on Easter Monday, 1964; it was open from 10am to 8pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays from Easter to the end of October.\u00a0 There was an admission charge of 15p to cover the costs of acquiring new exhibits. George\u2019s philosophy at this time was to collect items from within a 10 mile radius of Marton, trying to find as many old craftsmen\u2019s tools and samples of their work as possible.\u00a0 In the mid 1800s Marton itself had been home to a blacksmith, a wheelwright, a thatcher, a butcher, a pump maker, a saddler, a horse collar maker, a coal haggler, a carpenter (who was also the undertaker), a builder, a baker, and an ale brewer, a miller, a plumber\/glazier, a doctor surgeon, a painter\/decorator, a shoemaker, a tailor and a bricklayer.\u00a0 In addition there were several farms.\u00a0 George had great admiration for the men who used these tools, simple though many of them were. In time his horizons spread and the concept was widened but this original philosophy remained fundamental to the Museum. Not only did George collect the items, he was also very interested in their history and the stories behind them and he himself proved to be an excellent story teller.\u00a0 Visitors to the Museum learnt a great deal from him about the artefacts and the history of the area in general.\u00a0 He soon became much in demand as a public speaker at local organisations interested in history and the Museum started to become quite well known outside the village.<\/p>\n

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The Museum remained on the old Hall Farm site until 1980 when the land on which it stood was purchased by developers to build a small housing project (now Louisa Ward Close).\u00a0 One of the conditions of their obtaining planning permission was to create some facilities for the village: a sports field, a sports pavilion and a building for the Museum, all of which would be owned by the Parish Council.\u00a0 The Museum building and half of the car park attached to it were leased to George (and later to the Trust which he subsequently set up).\u00a0 At George\u2019s request the building was an empty shell of brick construction with a cavity wall and contained a small breeze block cubicle inside to act as an office\/workshop.\u00a0 Electricity was laid on but there was no water supply.\u00a0 This is how we find the Museum today. George moved in to the new building over a period of months in 1980\/81 and the official opening took place on 18 June 1982, officiated by the Mayor and Mayoress of Rugby. The new Museum was open daily between 10am and 8pm from Easter to October, admission now being charged at \u00a31 for adults and 50p for children (but free for Marton residents).\u00a0 The Museum soon became an important part of village life. George received many visits of coach parties and continued to give talks to various organisations.\u00a0 The WI (sadly no longer in existence) often provided teas for the visitors in the village hall.\u00a0 With the extra space available George began to widen his scope.\u00a0 He now collected all sorts of things: begging, borrowing and even buying (usually at auction).\u00a0 As a result there are some very esoteric items in the Museum which just add to its interest and intrigue.<\/p>\n

On 1 September 1983 a <\/strong>Trust was established to own and run the Museum. <\/strong>The Trustees were initially all members of George\u2019s close family although later two\u00a0prominent local residents also became Trustees.\u00a0 George was the Managing Trustee which allowed him to continue running the\u00a0Museum as before.\u00a0 On 12 December 1983 charitable status was granted to the Museum. The Museum continues to be run on this basis today.\u00a0 Around about 2002 serious illness forced George to close the Museum and he eventually died in January 2005. This left the future of the Museum in some doubt but eventually, following negotiations between the Tims family and Marton Parish Council, it was agreed in 2009 that new Trustees would be appointed from the village and a group of volunteers formed to work together to re-open the Museum.\u00a0 It soon became obvious that the purpose-built Museum was not, in fact, fit for purpose.\u00a0 The lack of heating was creating wide fluctuations in temperature leading to serious condensation problems.\u00a0 Furthermore, a considerable amount of woodworm was discovered in the artefacts as well as damage from rodents.\u00a0 It was evident that the building needed some serious remedial work if the whole collection was not to be lost.\u00a0 It has been a slow process but, with the help of some small grants and encouragement and assistance from Warwickshire Museum Service, professional plans are now being drawn up for building work to be funded (hopefully) by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.\u00a0 Meanwhile, much work has been carried out in cataloguing the (literally) thousands of items in the Museum. The Museum was proud to open to the public once again for the national Heritage Open Days event in 2011 and this has now become an annual happening.\u00a0 The Museum was open to the public on a regular basis in 2013 on Sunday afternoons from June to September and visits from interested organisations have recommenced.\u00a0 A programme of events to involve the wider community has begun e.g. visits to care homes, activity days for children etc.\u00a0 There is still much work to do, most of it very dependent on funding, but it is wonderful to look back over the last five years and see how much has been achieved.\u00a0 The story continues\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

See also a video about the museum and its contents on YouTube<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marton Museum of Country Bygones owes its existence to the passion and doggedness of just one man, George Tims.\u00a0 George was an inveterate collector of things great and small from a very early age, a habit he acquired from his mother. He grew up in Leamington but always had an interest in \u00a0rural life, encouraged … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-173","page","type-page","status-publish"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1700,"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/173\/revisions\/1700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martonvillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}