Hallaton Museum - The Early Years

Hallaton museum was conceived and created by Mrs Honoria Whigham (nee Bewicke), who lived for many years in Argentina, returning to Hallaton as a widow in the mid '70's.

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An official opening took place in June 1978 with a sherry party at which some sixty people attended and a few opening words were given by Mrs Whigham. At that time there were no plans for the running of the museum and in 1979 Mrs Whigham agreed to be the keeper when the museum was open in July, September and October.

The 1980 and 81 seasons were opened with exhibitions of paintings by Mr Leslie Spencer and visits from students of the Archaeological School of the Leicester Polytechnic who spent their days sketching Hallaton scenes - patterned brick and old stone mullioned windows and hidden doorways.

At the very beginning inevitably the museum “collection” was random, comprising whatever artefacts Mrs Whigham could gather, many having no relevance to Hallaton but there was a core build up of old tools and implements, many loaned by Bob Read of Medbourne.

By 1984 an ambitious exhibition “Farm and Agricultural tools of the past” was planned when some 160 exhibits were loaned for the Bank Holiday weekend by the Leicester Museum, the Oakham Museum and a number of local farmers and private collectors.

In 1985 Mrs Whigham, now in her 80's, indicated that she would like to hand over her responsibilities and she approached Denis Kenyon to take on the task. It was obvious to all that our unique little museum must be continued.

To that end a steering committee was formed to create The Friends of Hallaton Museum who would appoint a group of six Trustees to administer and develop the work of the museum. The first Annual General Meeting took place in January 1986.Now under the chairmanship of Denis Kenyon ably assisted by an enthusiastic group of 'friends of the museum', the next decade saw an ambitious programme beginning with the first AGM and dinner in The Bewicke Arms with guest speaker. This started a splendid tradition.

In order to produce interesting and informative displays research groups met and trawled local records often under the tuition of experts like the Keeper of Records at Wigston who helped to analyse the Census records for the 1988 display, 1851 Census and Village Trades. Much of the information gained has been invaluable for future exhibitions. Efforts were made to encourage visits by other museum and historical societies and numbers visiting the museum steadily rose.

One of the highlights during these years was the 1989 display 'Hallaton at War', the brief being not to glorify war but to record and remember an important period of our country's history, seen from the perspective of the local scene and everyday events. A questionnaire was circulated requesting loans or gifts for the purpose of display.

Attics and cellars were rifled and many treasures emerged and we were able to put together a wonderful display. Perhaps the highlight was the sand bagged gun emplacement built for us by the T.A. Battalion of The Tigers. Or was it the arrival of the bomb squad who came to investigate the World War 1 stick grenade - still primed and subjected to a controlled explosion amid much flashing of blue lights!

Numbers of visitors rose and fell until our 1994 display, Blacklead and Beeswax, when a record of 1,602 visitors came and enthused over the Victorian kitchen. Ginger the cat, a very popular exhibit with children who were not at all sure whether he was stuffed or simply sleeping, was loaned to us by the Newarke Houses Museum and became famous when he featured in the Leicester Mercury newspaper.

The following seven years under the chairmanship of John Morison saw more and more successful displays when we added to our ever increasing store of exhibits the artefacts from the Wigston Museum which was closing down. When storage became a problem there was always someone with a barn or building that could be brought into use.

Underground Hallaton, our 1997 exhibition saw the museum transformed into a storm drain and 1998 Field to Table, Dairy, Kitchen also introduced a popular recipe book, Hallaton Hotchpotch. A full sized model of a work horse became part of several exhibitions and our mannequin has of necessity been both male and female.

In 2001 the topic was Hallaton Schooling. Former pupils were searched out and contacted for memories of their schooldays in Hallaton, an exercise that brought together many old school friends. A wealth of stories followed and the present day pupils took part in a competition to produce a project on the school. It was the involvement of the community and the realistic reproduction of a schoolroom, complete with schoolmaster and desks, that brought us our prestigious first prize in the Leicestershire County Council Heritage Awards.