News page of Spelthorne Museum, Staines, Middlesex.

Latest News

Family Activity Day
Roman Spring Festivals

On Saturday 1st April the Museum will be holding a Family activity day from 11am until 3pm – it will be about Roman Spring Festivals – Flower Power all over. Members of the Education Team, dressed as Romans, will be helping with various activities, trails,
competitions and quizzes.

Always free, come along with the kids and have fun!

Last talk of the season.

Latest Exhibition 2017

June 2nd, 2016

Look at what we won in 2016!

Spelthorne Museum Press Release:
Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service 2016

Spelthorne Museum volunteers, based in Staines, have been recognised with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service for 2016

The volunteers who run Spelthorne Museum have been honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK.

Spelthorne Museum was founded in Staines in 1980, and since then the volunteers have run the museum themselves, with financial support from Spelthorne Borough Council. Approximately 40 people are involved, the longest-serving having been involved since the museum opened 36 years ago. Besides staffing the museum, the volunteers plan and mount exhibitions, both at the museum and at external events, run family friendly events in the museum, provide an educational service to local schools, host visits from community groups, publish books on local heritage, and answer queries from the public. A Young Archaeologists Club also meets at the museum.

Nick and Sue Pollard from the Spelthorne Museum Volunteers were invited to represent the group at a garden party at Buckingham Palace on 19th May, in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

Nick and Sue Pollard at Buckingham Palace

Spelthorne Museum Volunteers are one of 193 charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to receive the prestigious award this year. The number of awards given to groups this year is slightly higher than last year, showing that the voluntary sector is thriving and full of innovative ideas to tackle community challenges.

The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service is the highest award given to local volunteer groups across the UK to recognise outstanding work in their communities. The awards were created in 2002 to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and winners are announced each year on 2 June – the anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation. ?

The Spelthorne Museum Volunteers will receive the crystal award from the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey later this summer.

The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service Committee Chair, former broadcast journalist Sir Martyn Lewis said:

“I warmly congratulate all of the inspirational voluntary groups who have been rewarded for their community work with a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. The judging panel for this year’s awards were struck by the quality and breadth of all the successful groups.
The thousands of volunteers who give up spare time to help others in their community and to help solve problems demonstrate the very best of democracy in action.”

Minister for Civil Society, Rob Wilson, said:

“I would like to congratulate all groups who received this year’s Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, in recognition of their fantastic achievements. The huge amount of work and commitment these organisations put into their local communities is surpassed only by the passion and motivation of the individuals who volunteer. I hope these groups continue to inspire others to get involved and make a positive impact so that we can continue to build a more compassionate society.”

Julia Gibbs, Chair of Spelthorne Archaeology and Local History Group which runs Spelthorne Museum, said:

“We are tremendously proud to have been honoured in this way. It’s a real recognition of the countless hours of unpaid work that have been put in by our volunteers over the last 36 years. We are very much focused on sharing the history and archaeology of the Borough of Spelthorne, and we hope that members of the community will feel inspired to join us and carry on this fascinating and worthwhile work”

Our latest Acquisition

'SPELTHORNE MUSEUM ACQUIRES IMPORTANT PAINTING OF STAINES'

Spelthorne Museum, Staines, has acquired at auction an important local painting, ‘Staines with St. Mary’s Church’ by Edward H. Niemann. The large oil painting, which dates from c1880, shows the Thames at Staines with St. Mary’s Church, and was purchased for the museum with the generous assistance of the Art Fund.

Museum spokesman Nick Pollard commented “This painting is an important addition to our collection and forms a valuable record of the riverside at Staines, when it still had a rural aspect. It will be the centrepiece of future exhibitions of views of the riverside in Spelthorne. We are extremely grateful to the Art Fund for enabling us to purchase this painting, which otherwise would have been beyond our resources”. Niemann was well known in the mid Victorian period for his views of the English countryside and along the Thames in particular, and this is the first of his work to be owned by the museum. It is now on display in the Thames Room at the museum.

The museum also acquired several other paintings, prints and other items relating to the Borough’s history at the same auction, for which it will be seeking sponsorship.

Museum News

At the 2016 AGM the following members were elected on to the Committee:
Chair - Julia Gibbs
Vice-Chair - Jackie Browne
Treasurer - Inna Bruvere
Secretary/Editor - Jenny Scripps
Committee - Peter Bailey, P. Cole, D. Hallé, S Montague, N Pollard
Volunteer Representative/Web-master - G Hazell
Museum Mentor - R Ferneley
Curator - J Browne

New Books

There are some recent additions on sale in the Museum shop in the Thames Room. which is open when volunteers are on duty Wednesdays and Fridays 2pm - 4pm. Saturdays (first Saturday of the month only is early opening at 11 am) 1.30pm - 4.30pm

Magna Carta
Why the Barons came to Staines in 1215
£1.50 (£1 p & p)

Remembering Spelthorne - Part 2 1915
Spelthorne Heroes who died in 1915
£3.00 (£3.30 p & p)

Staines Town Hall : Surrey's Finest
£2.00 (£3.30 p & p)

Sunbury and Shepperton in World War One
History of the area in the Great War
Price £7.00 (£3.30 p & p)

Belgians in Staines at Riverbank
by Jenny Scripps to go with the WW1 Exhibit
Price £1.50 (£1 p & p)

Before the Memories Fade
by Don Burt, MBE
Price £5.00 (£2.30 p & p)

The History of Walton Bridge
by Nick Pollard
60 pages in colour
Price £7.00 (£3 p & p)

This book is published by the Sunbury and Shepperton Local History Society.

The new Walton Bridge was officially opened on July 11th 2014

We now have a large model of the bridge in the Museum

A reprinted book is Stanwell, My Village by Beryl Wilkins
£5 (£2.30 p & p)

The monthly talk programme run by Spelthorne Archaeology and Local History Group (SALHG) each series runs from September until April each year. Talks are held in either Staines Methodist Church, Thames Street, Staines or the Fordbridge Centre, Fordbridge Road, Ashford and start at 8pm. There is a varied programme of talks covering both local history and archaeological subjects. Admission is free to members of SALHG, non-members welcome at a charge of £2 per person with tea or coffee and biscuits just 40p.

For the full schedule of talks please look on the Talks page

Spelthorne Museum is divided into two rooms. The Elmsleigh Room is opened by Staines Library staff and has the history of Spelthorne from the Ice Age to Modern Times. To provide visitors with something different there are two display areas which are changed frequently.

Window on Spelthorne
Is a small display case near the Fire Exit and changes roughly every month.

Big Blue Board
The second area in the Elmsleigh Room to have a varying subject is a display board (sadly called 'The Big Blue Board', because that is what it is!).

Temporary Exhibition Area
The second of Spelthorne Museum's two rooms is the Thames Room. This is opened when volunteers are on duty and as well as further displays and the Museum Shop it has the Temporary Exhibition area. The Museum aims to have two temporary exhibitions a year. The Thames Room is open Wednesdays and Fridays 2pm - 4pm and Saturdays (first Saturday of the month only is early opening at 11 am) 1.30pm - 4.30pm

2012/2016

SPELTHORNE MUSEUM ONE OF THE FIRST IN THE COUNTRY
TO BE ACCREDITED

Spelthorne Museum is delighted to announce that it has been awarded Accredited status in the first round of the updated Arts Council Museum Accreditation Scheme.

The Accreditation scheme sets nationally agreed standards for museums in the UK. It has led the way in raising museum standards in the country, and has been used as a model and source of inspiration for similar schemes overseas.

Spelthorne Museum is one of the first in the country to receive this award, and the achievement is even more remarkable because unlike many of the 1,800 museums taking part, it is entirely volunteer run, with the support of Spelthorne Council.

The assessment panel commented that ’Spelthorne Museum displayed consistent enthusiasm and commitment to the accreditation process’. Museum Chair Julia Gibbs added ‘Our small team have done a fantastic job in putting together new procedures to meet ever rising standards in museums, with great support from our enthusiastic team of volunteers, who help to put it all into practice. We have been told our submission is being seen as a model for other small museums to follow’.

Nick Pollard

Spelthorne Museum 7/11/2012