Bring your archaeological discoveries!
Frome Museum Finds Day – 27 July
On 27 July the museum will be hosting a Finds Day to mark the UK’s annual Festival of Archaeology
The museum will also have a temporary display throughout the month on the theme of archaeology.
We will be joined on our Finds Day by several experts and representatives from the Bath and Counties Archaeological Society, who will be talking about a local dig and other recent archaeological activity in the Frome area.
Laura Beckwith, the South West Heritage Trust’s Finds Liaison Officer for Somerset, will be hosting a number of pre-booked 20-minute sessions throughout the day, when she will meet local finders to discuss and answer questions about their discoveries.
The sessions will be very popular and are likely to be snapped up well in advance. You can contact Laura at somerset.finds@swheritage.org.uk to enquire about her availability.
Frome Museum x Black Swan Arts:
Black Swan Open 2024 summer residencies and Alice Kettle’s pop-up workshop at the museum
We are delighted to be collaborating over the summer with Black Swan Arts in Frome.
A series of residencies will showcase the work of young local artists. whose pieces will be shown in the stunning surroundings of the museum’s cantilevered stone staircase.
The first residency, from 30 July until 4 August, will display work by Martha Womack and Violet Venables-Ziminski.
Please come and join us on Sunday 4 August, when we will be welcoming Professor of Textile Art Alice Kettle, whose work has just been bought by the V&A.
Alice is making a monumental work with portraits by members of the public, which will be combined to make a crowd of people. Her pop-up drawing table, gathering work for the project, will be at the museum from 10.00am – 12.00pm.
The public’s drawings will be embroidered by Alice to make a huge multitude of people, which will be exhibited in 2025 as ‘Hear My Voice, Portraits in Cloth’ at the RWA in Bristol . You can find out more about the project as a work in progress on the Black Swan Arts website: https://www.blackswanarts.org.
Check in for more information on this exciting collaboration soon.
Heritage Open Day events at the museum on 7 September
On 7 September the museum will once again be participating in the annual UK-wide Heritage Open Days event.
We will be hosting a talk by Mike Bishop, who retired last year after 17 years as Frome’s town crier. Mike will tell us about the history of the town crier tradition and about his own life as a crier.
We will also be running two of our ever-popular Behind the Scenes tours of the museum.
All the events will be free of charge and open to all, but numbers will be limited and tickets will be required to attend.
Click on these links to book now:
Working Memories archive now available on the museum’s website
The Home in Frome community group was formed in 2009, inspired by an exhibition at the museum curated by Robert Golden.
Over 80 local residents were interviewed between 2009 and 2012 about their working lives in Frome in the past.
These video and audio interviews form the Working Memories archive, which we are now pleased to be hosting permanently on the museum’s website.
Object of the Month – July 2024
This month’s object is the Tedbury Quern, which can be seen at Frome Museum.
The quern was discovered some time during World War II at Tedbury Camp, near Great Elm, the location of an Iron Age hill fort.
Some 2,000 years ago, the people of the Iron Age used this quern with a beehive pattern to grind their corn. It was sprinkled into the hole in the centre of the top stone. With a handle, the top stone was then moved forwards and backwards to grind the corn between the two stones.
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Frome Museum is run entirely by volunteers and receives no regular funding.
Every donation we receive helps us to keep our collections and research resources open and remain at the heart of our community.
Please donate today. Thank you.
