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Established | 1987 |
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Dissolved | 2018 |
Location | Stour Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2NR |
Type | Local history museum, Children's museum, Heritage museum |
Public transit access | Rail: Canterbury West; Canterbury East Buses: National Express, Stagecoach |
Website | www |
The Canterbury Heritage Museum (formerly the Museum of Canterbury) was a museum in Stour Street, Canterbury, South East England, telling the history of the city. It was housed in the 12th-century Poor Priests' Hospital next to the River Stour. The museum exhibited the Canterbury Cross and contained a gallery dedicated to Rupert the Bear, whose creator Mary Tourtel lived in Canterbury. It held regular events and exhibitions of local and national interest. The museum closed in 2018. It has since re-opened as The Marlowe Kit; an escape room, exhibition and creative space.
The museum was founded by William Masters, a local nurseryman specializing in exotic plants, who went on to serve as Hon. Curator from 1823 to 1846. [1]
The museum was in the medieval Poor Priests' Hospital with two adjoining buildings, backing on to the River Stour. [2] From 1174 to 1207 the long, low block parallel to Stour Street was the stone house of a tanner, a rich minter and the minter's son, Alexander, who converted it into an almshouse in the name of the Virgin Mary for old and poor priests. The priests used the house as a hall, living, eating and sleeping around a central fire. In 1373 the solar and undercroft were added opposite the present gateway, to give privacy on the upper floor to the master of the hospital. At the other end of the original hall was the service quarter for servants with kitchen, pantry and buttery. Next to the solar is the Chapel of St Mary, which was designed as a single open space with a back kitchen. Two upper floors were later inserted, with windows and chimney. This set of buildings became secular in 1575: a school, poorhouse, workhouse and clinic. The museum was previously at the Beaney as the Heritage Museum, then was established in Stour Street in 1987 to celebrate local history, and the building restored to show the interior crown-post roof. [3]
The museum was closed in 2018 after visitor numbers had dropped from 30,000 to less than 9,000 over the previous five years.
A campaign was led by local institutions, including Canterbury Archaeological Trust, to keep it open. [4]
On 6 April 2019, the venue reopened with a year-long exhibition called The Marlowe Kit. [5]
Exhibits in galleries and displays dated from pre-Roman to the present, and were arranged as a time walk from the earliest to latest, with a prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon display, medieval discovery gallery, Marlowe whodunit display, wartime Blitz experience, Joseph Conrad gallery, Bagpuss and Clangers display, Rupert Bear Museum, and an exhibitions gallery. [6] There were interactive displays involving a microscope, a treasure chest and World War II plane-spotting. There was also a wing housing The 1900 House Victorian collection. [2] [7]
There was a tapestry, covering three walls, which showed the life-story of Thomas Becket. There was a display of bones found locally, with forensic analysis and reconstructed faces from the Meet the Ancestors show. [8] A prized exhibit in the Saxon gallery was the Canterbury Cross, an 850 AD Saxon brooch found in St Georges Street in 1867. [9] [10] [11] It is in the form of a consecration cross: traditionally one of twelve similar crosses marked on church walls to represent the apostles and the twelve anointings of the building by the bishop at consecration. [12] [13]
There was also furniture, household objects, arms and armour, [14] as well as the Canterbury Pendant: a Saxon silver portable sundial which was lent briefly in 2009 to Canterbury Cathedral for an exhibition. [15] [16] [17] It was made in the form of a pendant, is ascribed to the silversmith St Dunstan (909−988 AD), and could probably only indicate the time accurately at noon. It was used to measure the time of prayer. It was found in the Cathedral cloisters during excavations in 1948. [18] [19] [20] [15] The Invicta locomotive was housed here. [21] Between 2009 and 2012, Canterbury Heritage Museum held many of The Beaney's exhibits during its refurbishment, including the Sir Basil Dixwell by Van Dyck bought for £1 million by Canterbury in 2004; Sir Basil had lived at Broome Park near Canterbury. [22] [23]
The Rupert Bear Museum was opened in 2003 with a £500,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant. The creator of Rupert Bear, Mary Tourtel, grew up and attended art school in Canterbury, and a 1921 first-edition Rupert annual was one of the exhibits. The Rupert Bear Museum involves activities for children on the themes of play, entertainment and education. It includes the Bagpuss and Clangers display with items from the original television shows, such as the Emily shop-window from the opening scene of Bagpuss, because its creators Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate filmed the programmes at Firmin's house near Canterbury. [24]
The museum was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Express Newspapers. [25]
Regular family interactive events were scheduled. [26] In June 2008 there was a two-day celebration of the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth and of the James Bond films. [27] In November 2008 there was a Rupert Bear Day, with the cartoon's new illustrator Stuart Trotter signing Rupert books. [28] In July 2009 the museum celebrated the anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first moonwalk in 1969. It was an interactive event with the public chatting to astronomers and an astrodome showing a 3D tour of night sky and Solar System. [29] In 2009 the museum celebrated an exhibition and a 40th anniversary of the Clangers TV show with two interactive events which included meetings with Peter Firmin, the show's co-creator. [30] [31] Oliver Postgate, the other creator of Bagpuss and the Clangers, lived locally and died in 2008, but his creations were given to the museum during his lifetime. [32] [33]
The museum was open seasonally between March and September and was also open during school holidays, with disabled access. An entrance fee was charged. [34] [35]
Bagpuss is a British animated children's television series which was made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate through their company Smallfilms. The series of thirteen episodes was first broadcast from 12 February to 7 May 1974. The title character was "a saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams". Although only thirteen episodes were produced and broadcast, the programme remains fondly remembered, and was frequently repeated in the UK until 1986. In early 1999, Bagpuss topped a BBC poll for the UK's favourite children's television programme.
Kent is a county in the South East England region, the closest county to continental Europe. It borders Essex across the entire estuary of the River Thames to the north; the French department of Pas-de-Calais across the Strait of Dover to the south-east; East Sussex to the south-west; Surrey to the west and Greater London to the north-west. The county town is Maidstone.
Smallfilms is a British television production company that made animated TV programmes for children from 1959 until the 1980s. In 2014 the company began operating again, producing a new series of its most famous show, The Clangers, but it became dormant again in 2017, after production of the show was slightly changed. It was originally a partnership between Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. Several popular series of short films were made using stop-motion animation, including Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine. Another Smallfilms production, Bagpuss, came top of a BBC poll to find the favourite British children's programme of the 20th century.
Clangers is a British stop-motion animated children's television series, consisting of short films about a family of mouse-like creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon-like planet. They speak only in a whistled language, and eat green soup and blue string pudding. The programmes were originally broadcast on BBC1 between 1969 and 1972, followed by a special episode which was broadcast in 1974.
Canterbury is a city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climate.
Richard Oliver Postgate was an English animator, puppeteer, and writer. He was the creator and writer of some of Britain's most popular children's television programmes. Bagpuss, Pingwings, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers and Pogles' Wood, were all made by Smallfilms, the company he set up with collaborator, artist and puppet maker Peter Firmin. The programmes were originally broadcast by the BBC from the 1950s to the 1980s. In a 1999 BBC poll Bagpuss was voted the most popular children's television programme of all time.
Noggin the Nog is a fictional character appearing in a BBC Television series and a series of illustrated books, created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. The television series is considered a cult classic from the golden age of British children's television. Noggin himself is the simple, kind and unassuming "King of the Northmen" in a roughly Viking Age setting, with various fantastic elements such as dragons, flying machines and talking birds.
Peter Arthur Firmin was an English artist and puppet maker. He was the founder of Smallfilms, along with Oliver Postgate. Between them they created a number of popular children's TV programmes, The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers, Bagpuss and Pogles' Wood.
Ivor the Engine is a British cutout animation television series created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin's Smallfilms company. It follows the adventures of a small green steam locomotive who lives in the "top left-hand corner of Wales" and works for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited. His friends include Jones the Steam, Evans the Song and Dai Station, among many other characters.
Mary Tourtel was a British artist and creator of the comic strip Rupert Bear. Her works have sold 50 million copies internationally.
Pogles' Wood is an animated British children's television show produced by Smallfilms between 1965 and 1967, first broadcast by the BBC between 1965 and 1968.
Blean is a village and civil parish in the Canterbury district of Kent, England. The civil parish is large and is mostly woodland, much of which is ancient woodland. The developed village within the parish is scattered along the road between Canterbury and Whitstable, in the middle of the Forest of Blean. The parish of St. Cosmus and St. Damian in the Blean was renamed "Blean" on 1 April 2019.
The Westgate is a medieval gatehouse in Canterbury, Kent, England. This 60-foot (18 m) high western gate of the city wall is the largest surviving city gate in England. Built of Kentish ragstone around 1379, it is the last survivor of Canterbury's seven medieval gates, still well-preserved and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. The road still passes between its drum towers. This scheduled monument and Grade I listed building houses the West Gate Towers Museum as well as a series of historically themed escape rooms.
The Marlowe Theatre is a 1,200-seat theatre in Canterbury named after playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was born and attended school in the city. It was named a Stage Awards, 2022 UK Theatre of the Year.
The Seaside Museum Herne Bay is a local museum in Herne Bay, Kent, England. It was established in 1932, and is notable for being a seaside tourist attraction featuring local archaeological and social history, for featuring the history of the town as a tourist resort, for its local art exhibitions and for its World War II bouncing bomb. The management of the Museum was awarded by Canterbury City Council to the Herne Bay Museum Trust, who reopened it in July 2015, as The Seaside Museum Herne Bay.
The Canterbury Roman Museum in Canterbury, Kent, houses a Roman pavement which is a scheduled monument, in the remains of a Roman courtyard house which itself is a grade I listed building. The pavement was discovered after World War II bombing, and has been open to the public since 1946. The museum was established in 1961. It houses many excavated artifacts from Roman Canterbury, including the important late Roman silver hoard known as the Canterbury Treasure, together with reconstructions of the Roman town.
Whitstable Museum is a heritage centre in Whitstable, Kent, with Invicta, one of the world's oldest steam engines, the history of the local oyster trade and historical diving equipment.
The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge is the central museum, library and art gallery of the city of Canterbury, Kent, England. It is housed in a Grade II listed building. Until it closed for refurbishment in 2009, it was known as the Beaney Institute or the Royal Museum and Art Gallery. It reopened under its new name in September 2012. The building, museum and art gallery are owned and managed by Canterbury City Council; Kent County Council is the library authority. These authorities work in partnership with stakeholders and funders.
Daniel Raymond Postgate is an English script writer, author, and illustrator. Some of his books include Smelly Bill, Engelbert Sneem and His Dream Vacuum Machine, and Big Mum Plum. In 2014, he collaborated with Oliver Postgate’s business partner and other founder of Smallfilms, Peter Firmin on the production of a new series of The Clangers, with Daniel Postgate writing many of the episodes and voicing the Iron Chicken, The Soup Dragon, and her son, Baby Soup Dragon. He won a Bafta for his episode 'I am the Eggbot'.
Pride Canterbury is the LGBTQ+ pride event and parade held each June in Canterbury, Kent in the United Kingdom, since 2016, and next returning on Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 June 2024.