Research Group Display

Come One, Come All!

26th January - 3rd February 2013

Our volunteer research group have been busy putting their displays together for the weekend. Several topics have been thoroughly researched, including the main events in St Andrews in 1902. We have some fascinating objects for you to see, including this Rowantree Chocolate tin box made in celebration of King Edward VII’s Coronation on the 26^th of June 1902, marking the end of the Victorian period. The tin was handed out to local school children to mark the occasion.

 

 

The exhibition will open this Saturday (26th of January 2013) from 10am where we will be having our annual coffee morning, and we will be closing at 4pm. Thereafter, the museum will be open from 1pm - 4pm daily until the 3rd of February 2013.

You think this rain is bad...

We've been having some pretty horrid weather in St Andrews the past couple of days. But take a look at these photos of when the town flooded in July 1916, and we thought this summer was wet! These photos show what happened when the Kinnessburn burst its banks.


Kinn.B 030

 

This photo shows Kinnessburn Road, taken from South Bridge Street (foot of Melbourne Brae).  On the right corner is A P Gracie, Wine Merchant, which is no longer there. The shop on the left is now Adamson Hairdressers.



Kinn.B 030.1

 

Here we can see the flooding at the  rear of the houses at the junction of Kinnessburn Road and Melbourne Brae.

The Great Parasol Challenge

Umbrellas and parasols before repacking

Parasols and umbrellas before repacking

Over the last year, I have been working with two volunteers, Anne and Linda, to entirely repack our costume and textile collection.  This presented a huge challenge, previously there was no order to how the objects were packed - some boxes contained a quilt, a wedding dress, a victorian mourning gown, a pair of trainers and a top hat!

An early plan for parasol storage

One huge puzzle to us was what exactly to do with the parasols and umbrellas.  Previously they have been stored in an umbrella stand which had caused a few of them to deterioriate.  Space was a major consideration, so I was keen to use existing boxes on convert them into a suitable storage solution.

After consultation with the Scottish Conservation Studio at Hopetoun House, I came up with a plan which involved using plastazote to build supports inside acid free boxes. Another good resource for practical tips on packing parasols can be found here

So, on Tuesday the 9th October we set about putting this plan into action.  Thanks to all our careful preparation, the morning went exactly to plan, and the project has been a great success! First we built up two layers of plastazote.  We laid out the objects where we wanted them and drew outlines of them on the plastazote, and cut out the shape.  The umbrellas and parasols were then photographed and  wrapped loosely enough that they were not being forced closed, but tight enough to ensure that there was no strain being put on their spokes.  The wrappings also ensured that they don't touch eachother.  The ends were not sealed to ensure airflow into the interior.   Another two layers of plastazote were put on top, then a third on which we repated the process of drawing round the umbrellas and parasols.  You will notice that the boxes are not completely full to allow for the storage of some new parasols in the future. We do have some smaller and larger parasols, and some broken ones that will be packed into another box in a less standard arrangement.

All the parasols and umbrellas were photographed and await the addition of labels which will include their descriptions and photos, after which they should be safely stored for a longtime to come!

layer 1 pre-wrapping

layer 2 pre-wrapping

all wrapped up!

UPDATE!

Here are the parasols / umbrellas with their labels on:

 

 

 

The plastazote was bought from PEL, and we used their Neutral PH Adhesive to glue the supports together. 

Autumn Fair 2012

 

This Saturday, 1st September, The St Andrews Preservation Trust will be holding its Autumn Fair!   Stall include arts and crafts, cake and candy (yum!), bric a brac, second hand books, plants and vegetables, and lots more. 
Fingers crossed for sunshine, but if the weather is not in our favour, the Fair will be held accross the raod in All Saints Hall.

Lights On Fife : Photography Competition

Lights on Fife : Help us illuminate the gems in the kingdom’s rich and diverse museum collections

Fife Museums Forum invite you to take part in a photography competition and make your own individual contribution to celebrating the fascinating, inspiring and varied heritage, art and culture of the area.  Over the course of September we hope you’ll visit as many of Fife Museums as you can (or at least the one closest to where you live or are holidaying!) and take photographs of the wonderful things you will see there.  We would ask that you stick to inanimate objects and don’t start snapping fellow visitors, no matter how wonderful they are! 

Why not make the most of Doors Open Days and visit participating museums over three Sundays (2^nd for East area, 9^th  for Central and 16^th  for West Fife) in September.  For more information see www.fifedirect.org

Send your best picture to the forum via fifemuseumsforum@yahoo.co.uk

Get ideas, keep up to date with the competition and eventually see the winning results on our ‘We Love Museums in Fife’ Flickr Page.

The winning entries will receive prizes and feature in an exhibition to be shown at several of Fife’s fantastic museums over the coming months.

This competition is open to all ages, is free to take part in and will close on the 30^th of September 2012.      

We look forward to seeing and sharing the results.

Fife Museums Forum

Participating Venues:

Scottish Vintage Bus Museum

Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum

Crail Museum

Fife Contemporary Arts andCrafts

Fife Folk Museum

British Golf Museum

Museum of Communication

Scottish Fisheries Museum

St Andrews Preservation TrustMuseum

MUSA (Museum of the Universityof St Andrews)

Fife Council Museums

Abbot House Heritage Centre

Cupar Heritage Centre

Terms and Conditions  

1.      The competition is open to anyone

2.      You must be the copyright owner of any works submitted

3.      All submitted images must have been taken in a museum in Fife

4.      Multiple entries are permitted.

5.      Some objects may not be suitable for photographing, please consult individual venues photography policies.

6.      The photographer must have permission from those featured in the submitted image.

7.      All submitted images must be accompanied by the photographer’s full name, date of birth and contact details.

8.      Although the competition runs throughout September 2012, photos taken prior to this date are permitted for submission.

9.      Submitted images remain copyright of the entrant, however the Fife Museums Forum reserves the right to publish the images in related print and online.

10.  All entrants agree to take part in publicity related to the competition.

11.  Submitted images that the Forum deems to be offensive in any way will be disqualified from the competition.

12.  Any entry found not to comply with the Terms and Conditions will be disqualified from the competition.

13.  All entries submitted after 30^th September 2012 will not be counted.

The rights shall be applied to all existing and future media including but not limited to: hard copies, CD Roms, DVD-Roms, computers, servers and the internet, and press and marketing networks.

By entering this competition you are agreeing to these terms and conditions.

Behind the scenes

By Linda Clifford

Behind the scenes at the museum is great fun on Tuesday mornings. This is when Jennifer the curator, Anne Thorne and Linda Clifford get together to explore the secrets behind the curtain in the back room at 4 Queen’s Gardens: otherwise known as the offices of the Preservation Trust. The treasures hidden there can be fascinating or mundane and some can even be “whoever would accession that?!” but they are never boring.

In 2011 Jennifer decided that she would like to sort out all of the costume collection and store it in a more user friendly fashion. So one fine week in August the work began but no-one realised just what a task they had taken on. Do any of you know how many pairs of shoes, or the number of hats, or the quantity of mourning clothes the museum possesses? Well, now, thanks to Jennifer’s new system you can soon find out BUT woe betide any of you if you decide to open and examine any of them - there is a lot of work involved in repacking them. Jennifer taught us the correct way to pack and store costumes in tissue paper and then into the appropriate box. Slide-out drawer boxes were provided for the shoes and small accessories with hat boxes purchased for the many items of headgear. No future curator will have any problems finding just what they are looking for in the costume store.

Jennifer then turned her attention to the picture collection – another monumental task. Every picture has been photographed (photographer Anne Thorne at work here, and again this was a learning curve to figure out the best angle to do the picture justice) and they now all bear a label with a photo and description making them easier to identify when required for an exhibition. Anne and Linda are now able to find their way around when repacking items from exhibitions but there is still a lot to do and Jennifer is sure to find more and more tasks for the enthusiastic duo.

The article below was written by Volunteer Frances Humphries for our Volutneer Magazine "The Museum Times".

THE  TOLL  HOUSES  OF  ST ANDREWS

by Frances Humphries

As a youngster I was told of two toll houses in St. Andrews.  I lived close to one – the Argyle Street Toll (called the Argyle Port Toll) which was at the beginning of Hepburn Gardens at the short drive-way down to Cockshaugh Park and which is still there.  At this one I also remember the horse trough and the weigh-bridge which were sited at the side of the cottage. The second toll which had disappeared was on Abbey Walk, opposite the Cottage Hospital at the corner of Abbey Walk and Balfour Place (called the Shorebridge Toll). The other toll I was familiar with was the one on the Guardbridge Road which is still in place. (not of course in St. Andrews).

A group of museum volunteers have been working in the museum store at Queens Gardens.  Joy Steele was my partner and we worked away opening boxes, checking the content to make sure they were accessioned (with a number) and were what they should be.  One of the days we were working our way slowly through a box of documents when my eye caught an address on a letter dated 1821.  I could not believe what I saw -  THE TOLL HOUSE, LARGO ROAD.  Was this just a house name or was it a toll house?  I thought long and hard about it and decided it was logical to have a toll on the main road leading from St. Andrews to Largo.  Having read many books on the history of our town I had no recollection of seeing anything relating to a toll house on that road.  The next step was to try to find some confirmation of this.

This I found in a Valuation Roll of 1915 – there it was Toll House, Largo Road. The entry stated ‘old tollhouse and garden owned by James Ritchie, solicitor, and tenanted by Andrew Kirk’.  I then started to read The Roads of Fife by Owen Silver (published in 1987) and although I could not find anything written about this toll there was a map showing the tollbars recorded 1817-1850 with the three in St.Andrews and all being in use in 1816.

The next question was where was this Toll House?   Unfortunately I have so far been unable to definitely place this.  I spoke to an 87 year old St. Andrean who remembers her mother talking about a toll house at the beginning of the Canongate, roughly where the telephone box is now to be found. How accurate this is I do not know but I will continue to look for answers.

Toll houses were built beside the toll-gates and acted as both house and office for the person employed to collect the tolls.  These tolls were used for the upkeep of the roads. Many of the toll houses were simple cottages but a few were of a distinctive design with a round room.  An example of this is the one found on the Guardbridge Road.