Burwell Museum
of Fen Edge Village Life

Welcome to the  

Burwell Museum

 Website

Use the menu on the left to navigate around the main pages of the website.

The menu can be found in the same place on every page.

Hover your mouse pointer over a button for a brief description of that section.

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On this page you will find 
a Brief History Of The Museum and
a description of each building and the displays they contain.
Information for the media. Documents/Forms to download.
Donate online or by post.
(Click on underlined text above to jump to that section of this page)

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Opening Times & Admission Charges

can be found by clicking on "Admission & Facilities" here or at the bottom of this page.

Shortcut to Bottom of Page 

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM

Burwell Museum Trust was formed in Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England in 1982 (registered as charity No.290431 in 1984), by a small group of like minded people with an interest in local history, to set up a museum providing the public a glimpse of what life was like in a village on the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens in the past.

Some members of the group already had a collection of potential exhibits but no permanent place to display them.
In the late 80's a suitable building was found - a 200-year-old timber framed barn, derelict but structurally sound, in another village.
The owner, an elderly farmer, wanted £400 for the barn. The Museum Trust only had £50 at that time. The owner accepted this and said the Trust could pay him the rest when they had some more money.
The barn was dismantled and transported to Burwell, restored and re-erected on a site (disused allotments) owned by the Parish Council next to Stevens' Mill (a restored windmill now owned by the Museum Trust).

At 2pm on Easter Sunday 1992 we opened to the general public for the first time.
Sadly, the original owner of the barn had died a couple of years before, but some of his family visited the barn as invited guests at the opening of the museum. The family were so pleased with what we had done to the barn they said there was no need to pay what we still owed them for it.

Cost of purchasing the barn: £50.

Cost of dismantling, moving, rebuilding and fitting out the barn: about £40,000.

 

Over the 2 afternoons of that Easter weekend (Sunday & Monday, 2-5pm each day) there was a total of over 300 visitors.

Since then the Museum site has grown and more buildings added.
These buildings have either come from elsewhere in the local area and re-erected on the Museum site or have been built from scratch in the local style using reclaimed local building materials. All the buildings have been paid for with a combination of Grants and the Museums' own money.
Even with these extra buildings we still don't have enough space to display everything we have!

Initially we were only planning to open on Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday afternoons from Easter to the end of September. Now we open on Thursday afternoons as well, and close for the winter at the end of October.

The Museum is run entirely by unpaid volunteers. All the work for the Museum is carried out in our spare time, with probably just as many hours working at home as at the Museum itsself.
We are looking for more willing volunteers to help with the running of the Museum. If you are interested and would like to know more please click on the "Vacancies" button on the left.

FRIENDS OF BURWELL MUSEUM

Much of the fundraising for the museum is carried out by the hard-working and enthusiastic Friends of Burwell Museum. Find out more about the Friends by
clicking here : Friends Page

 

The Museum is very popular with children. Many of them return several times with their families, after first visiting with a School Group

  MEDIA

The museum has featured in several magazines and local newspapers, also local radio and regional tv.
If you would like to feature the museum (including the windmill) in your magazine/newspaper article or would like to do any radio/tv/film recording (or even live broadcast) you would be most welcome. We may also be able to lend you some items we have on display or in storage for you to use away from the museum site. There is vehicle access on to the museum site
(click here for more details)

THE WEBSITE

This website is intended to provide further information, photos and other details to what is available in our leaflet.

Check the "News" page for the latest information. Updates may appear at any time.

 

 

DOCUMENTS/FORMS TO DOWNLOAD
The following documents are available to download directly from this site or via e-mail :
1)Factsheet 2008 .
The current list of Special Events is also on the Special Events page.

(Fund-raising events not listed on the Factsheet, such as the Craft Fair and Yard Sales, can also be found there).

2)Location Map.

3)Gift-Aid Declaration

4)Collection Policy

5)Groups Booking Form.

 

6)Visitor Survey.

If you have visited the Museum in 2008 please print out this survey, fill it in and return it to the Museum either in person or by post (see Contacts page).

To download a document - "click" on the document you want from the list above. When the new window opens displaying the document you can then print and/or save the document if you wish to. Simply close the document window when you have finished saving/printing.

To view " " files you will need the "Adobe Reader". This program is usually already installed on computers. If it isn't, you can download it for free by clicking here (a new window will open - follow the simple download instructions given on the page.)

To have any of the documents sent by e-mail send us a blank message with the name of the document in the subject line. The document will be sent as an attachment. You can also request a document using the Enquiry Form (please give an e-mail address to send document to).

If you have visited the Museum please leave your comments in the website Guestbook (an internet version of the paper book in the Museum itself). Go to the "Guestbook " page by clicking on the button in the menu to the left.

If you would like to contact the Museum - click here to e-mail, or use the "Enquiry Form". Full contact information (including e-mail addresses) is available on the "Contacts " page.

 The first museum website was set up at the end of 2001. The website as you see it now went "live" on 18th March 2005 and upgraded for better access & display during January-February 2008.
This website has much more space available than the old one. More photos and information will be added.

Our displays are set out as 'scenes' (rather like stage sets) with lots of individual artefacts making each display. This should give visitors a better idea of how, where and when items were used.

Photos of each building and the displays can be found in the Gallery section of this website or by clicking on the small pictures in this section.

See the Site Plan to the left for the location of each building. The entire site outside the buildings is grassed. The grass is short and the ground is firm.

Larger versions of the Site Plan are available free of charge at the Admission Kiosk to help you find your way around.

In the BARN (our first building - 18th Century timber framed barn dismantled in another village and reconstructed on its present site),  the displays include: A building site with local building materials, old plumbing and carpentry tools, reconstructions of an old wash/laundry room and an old kitchen. Also reconstructions of an old living room and a child's bedroom.
The main display in the Barn is "The Farming Year" showing old farm tools and machines in a sort of 'time-line' from Spring to Winter.
Other displays in the Barn include Dinky toys and many old photos.

Many of the displays in the Barn have information cards written in English and French. This is something we hope to extend to all the displays at the Museum.

The Barn also contains the Museum shop selling souvenirs, books, videos and light refreshments.

(The old maps of Burwell are now on display in the Exhibition Room of the Resources Building.)
Just outside the Barn entrance is the "Hands-On Table" where, as the name suggests, you can get you hands on some (more robust) items. These include old traps (made safe), various tools and some old Burwell bricks

The NISSEN HUT (originally from North Street, Burwell), contains items from both World Wars and includes a servicemans' bed & locker area, 'Trench Art' and many uniforms. Also there is genuine World War 2 songs and radio broadcasts playing from an old radio in the corner.

Adjoining the Nissen Hut is the VINTAGE CAR GARAGE (part of the Nissen Hut), containing a vintage car (currently a 1907 "Holsman"), kindly loaned by Mr Mike Mitcham, and many motoring bygones.

The contents of this building have been moved to the Vintage Vehicles Gallery.

In the FORGE & WHEELWRIGHT'S SHOP
(Also known as the BLACKSMITHS SHOP) (Originally from the now closed Haddenham Museum),  there is a fully working forge (see "Special Events" page for demonstration dates.) and many tools. Also there is a fully working hand operated Wheelwrights' lathe and tools.

The AUDIO-VISUAL ROOM, (also known as the A-V Room), (built from scratch along with the Wagon Sheds and the Upper Gallery using mainly reclaimed local building materials), is where visitors can watch various videos on rural life in East Anglia over the last 100 years. The A-V room also contains local archaeology, photos showing the construction of the Museum buildings and also the Burwell Photographic Archive - thousands of photographs of Burwell people, activities, events and buildings from 1900 to 1999.
Census reports and a collection of local interest reference books are available in the AV Room.
Visitors can now order high quality copies of the photos in the archive.
Full details at the museum.

The MUSEUM WORKSHOP is situated below the A.V. Room. This is where we carry out repairs and restoration to exhibits.
For Health & Safety reasons this room is not accessible to visitors, but it can be viewed from the doorway.

The WAGON SHEDS, house old carts and farm machinery.

The UPPER GALLERY (also known as the GRANARY) 
 display area, has an Anglo-Saxon skeleton (which was found just outside Burwell), a Victorian school room (with the sound of children reciting 'times-tables' and singing playground rhymes) - you can sit at the old desks and write on the slates or in the sand tray, a village shop, the reconstructed cab of an old "Burwell & District" bus - sit in the Drivers seat so you can press the pedals and turn the steering wheel, and a working 1950s/60s automatic mechanical telephone exchange - dial the number on any one of the phones to watch the exchange connect you and then speak to somone through the phones.

The RESOURCES BUILDING (name may change in the future), is behind the Wagon Sheds, consists of display space for Temporary Exhibitions, a meeting room for the Trustees & Friends (also used as a reception/refreshments room for group visits), a store room for items not on display and environment controlled storage for delicate items. Most of the building is not normally accessible to visitors, apart from the end used for the old hand-operated fire engine from nearby Swaffham Prior, The Friends Bookshop and the display of items which belonged to "Dennis of Grunty Fen". Dennis had his own show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire for many years until his creator and performer Pete Sayers died. Many current and former Cambridgeshire residents will know of him as he had a very big fanbase.


The ROMAN POTTERY , is sited next to the Resources Building at the Dennis of Grunty Fen end behind the Audio-Visual Room and the Museum Workshop. It contains a Roman kiln (discovered near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire), a replica Roman potter's wheel and replica Roman pots.

We also have a SHEPHERDS HUT (from Pembroke Farm, Burwell) and an Edwardian revolving SUMMERHOUSE (from Mill Lane, Burwell), as well as various other farming implements in the grounds of the Museum.

VINTAGE VEHICLES GALLERY  

This building houses the last remaining Burwell & District bus and associated displays. Other displays include the 1907 Holsman, an Austin 7 car and eventually a mobile butcher's shop. A display about the former Burwell railway station and the Cambridge to Mildenhall branch line is also planned for this building or the "Upper Gallery" depending on space.
The building is sited behind and parallel to the Resources Building.
We have received a large personal donation from a very generous supporter of the Museum who wishes to remain anonymous. This donation, along with its' Gift-Aid payment, has greatly boosted the funds available for the building.
It is highly unlikely that the bus will ever leave the Museum site as the Road Tax and MOT have expired and the bus is now registered as being kept off the road.
Construction started early January 2008 and finished in May 2008. Click on the photo of the bus above to see photos of the construction.
The displays will gradually be improved and enlarged over the forthcoming months. Click here to see the opening ceremony photos.

STEVENS' MILL , standing outside the entrance to the Museum site, is a restored windmill built in the early 1800s, which is owned by the Museum. It is the only Museum building that is standing on its original site. Admission is free for Museum visitors who may climb the ladders to each floor when accompanied by a Museum Trustee.
We will have the Mill running occasionally - depending on the wind. Check the "Special Events" and "News" pages of this website regularly for possible running days - We won't actually know if we can run the mill until the day itself. Access to the Mill interior may be restricted for safety reasons, when it is running.The mill is undergoing some repair work at the moment. Unfortunately this will mean the mill will not run until the repairs are completed, although visitors should still be able to have access to all floors of the mill unless we are advised otherwise by our millrights.
The mill is a Grade 2* listed building.
Please see the "Gallery" section of this website for more photos of and information about the mill - click on the small picture above to go straight there.
If you have specific queries or information regarding the windmill click

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You can use this simple form to email them - "Email a Friend"

 
Click to see an Aerial Photo of Burwell by
The Museum is in the centre of the picture in the top-left corner of the allottments. The High Street runs top to bottom on the far left with Mill Lane running parralell just to the right of it. Newmarket Road runs from top-left to middle right. The photo is a few years old. Since the photo was taken the Vintage Vehicles Gallery has been added to the Museum site (the bus can be seen covered in green tarpaulins.roughly where the Gallery is now)
Use the "+" and "-" slider tool to zoom in and out of the picture.

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