Castle heritage pieces find new community homes

Tamworth Castle has existed as a museum since 1899, a lot longer than many of today’s local museums and holds many interesting and exciting items in both its object and archive collections.

As with any museum not all of the items can be on display, or even displayed at the same time.  Did you know there are 42,000 items held by Tamworth Castle? And we are still counting! It would need a very big area to display all those items! 

Not everything can be put on display because some items are too fragile, delicate or will be affected by being in daylight for any length of time. All museums have collections in storage that are not on show, and no museum can have all of its collections displayed.

Over 127 years of being a museum a lot of items have been acquired in different ways: most as donations, some as part of another donation. Some items have come to the collections from companies who ceased trading, the most famous of these being the Gibbs & Canning terracotta collection and archive.

Some items came as part of a job lot bought as purchases at auction in the past, to be used as furnishings for room settings in the Castle. This meant some items that have no relevance to Tamworth have been acquired in the past, and remained in store without being displayed or used, because we cannot tell the story behind them.

For the last 20 years Tamworth Castle has had a formal Collections Development Policy setting out the geographical areas where we will collect objects and archives from in the Tamworth area. This policy also defines the type of objects and archives we collect, and the ways in which we continue to collect, care for and manage them, including rationalisation.

It also sets out the guidelines we must adhere to as an Accredited Museum, to ensure we act in an ethical manner and to a standard accepted by all Museums in the United Kingdom. The policy is reviewed at least every five years, and a revised statement is brought before Tamworth Borough Council, as the governing body for its agreement. The date for the next review is 2028.

In line with other museums across the country Tamworth Castle is working towards providing greater access to its collections and archives, making them more visible and accessible in new and innovative ways.

Part of the new nationally approved rationalisation process allows museums to transfer items to recognisable community use and public venues, where they can be seen and enjoyed by wider audiences.

The Castle is excited to be partnering with two venues locally to showcase some items from the collections that have been permanently transferred to these venues in the spirit of community use and access.

St Editha’s Church will be showcasing three large paintings of three of the stained glass windows in the church.  The paintings are by the artist Mr A G McManus and were commissioned by Mr P Findley, of Tamworth in 1967. 

The paintings (and the windows) commemorate the memory of the men of Tamworth parish in WW1 (1914 -1918), and WW2 (1939-1945), and Rev. Captain Maurice Berkley Peel (of the Peel family) (b.1873 – d.1917) Vicar of St Editha’s Church in 1916, he is buried in VA 31 of Queant Road Cemetery, Buissy, France.

These paintings have never been on display since they were commissioned and it is right they should have a new home in the building they represent, allowing visitors to have a closer view of the details of the windows, along with the framed Roll of Honour of names that accompanies them.

The Tamworth Tap is already showcasing the large Morgan’s Brewery mirror, previously on loan from the Castle and now permanently transferred to the venue. The mirror was made by the famous Forrest & Son company, Argyle Street, Glasgow who made all shop furnishings in the last 19th and early 20th centuries. The mirror comes from the former Morgan’s brewery site on Ladybank that included the existing Georgian Brewhouse building, and extended behind the current buildings on Ladybank towards Weymouth House high rise flats.

Tamworth’s multi-award winning pub is also now home to two settles (wood benches) from the collections, one of which was from the Star Inn, formerly situated in Lower Gungate.

What better place to locate former pub items than in a fantastic and popular venue such as The Tap?  Two fire buckets from the former Tolson’s Mill will be decorating the pub yard in the summer, visit to see if you can spot them!

Finally, some documents, archives, and pictures from the Tamworth Castle Archives will be relocated to the relevant Record Offices for their locations in Leicestershire and Warwickshire, Stratford and Norfolk, as they have no relevance to Tamworth.

The documents were acquired as part of legal bundles deposited in the Castle Archives over 50 years ago.

Lastly, bound copies of the Tamworth Herald will be going to Tamworth Library to fill the year gaps that they have in their reserves for research.

This is all part of the rationalisation process being followed by countless other museums and archives across the country as we audit and refine the collections and archives to ensure we care and manage them in the best possible way to make them relevant and accessible.

Castle collections can also be viewed online at https://collection.tamworthcastle.co.uk/