To mark our 60th anniversary we are focusing on our founder, Edith Gratia Stedman OBE (whose corbel you can see on the Abbey wall), and how, although a newcomer and an American, she initiated and inspired so many activities, including the Museum, such that her legacy can be seen today.
We are developing a new and lasting exhibit featuring Edith and would greatly appreciate help in the form of ‘Edith’ anecdotes, documents and artefacts. We have most of her pamphlets and booklets, such as ‘A Yankee in an English Village’, but any of the following would be much appreciated, as donations or loans:
- Photographs or newspaper articles featuring Edith or the museum
- letters, articles, old museum minutes
- pieces of the commemorative china she ordered for sale in the museum, like the jug below
- a pristine copy of the original Monastery cookbook
- one of the pebbles from the driveway up from the lychgate, laid down by Amey from the gravel pit, which Edith had identified as Second Ice Age larvae set in pumice, and then sold for a shilling each in the museum as ‘Fiddlestones’!
Please feel free to contact me on 340054, or come into the Museum on any Thursday morning in March, 10-12.
Margot Metcalfe, Museum archivist