Great backdrops, live steam, period re-enactors and more at the 80-acre Museum of East Anglian Life, Monday 3rd July 2017

About this event

A new charter venue for this year is the excellent Museum of East Anglian Life at Stowmarket in Suffolk, where we have a full day of photography when the Museum is closed to the general public.  We will use some of the fine buildings that the Museum has to offer to recreate scenes reminiscent of the 1930s and 1940s, before the ravishes of time and progress swept across the country, with a 105-year old agricultural engine, rare paraffin-driven ploughing engines and a host of re-enactors to complement the many period backdrops that the Museum offers to photographers.

The Museum of East Anglian Life opened in 1967 and occupies an extensive 80-acre site near the heart of the town of Stowmarket.  It was established to preserve the history of traditional skills and crafts, buildings and equipment that were rapidly disappearing as new farming practices swept across the countryside during the 1960s.  It has many historical buildings, which include the impressive Abbot’s Hall and walled gardens, built in the Queen Anne-style in 1709 by local gentleman and merchant, Charles Blosse, and donated as a Museum in the 1960s by Vera and Ena Longe.  The blacksmith’s forge, dating from around 1750 and originally located at Grundisburgh, was rescued from demolition in 1972.  The last owner of the business was Frederick Joseph Crapnell, who worked the forge from 1913 until his retirement, aged 86, in 1968.  The smithy and travis (where the horses would have been shod) were rescued from planned demolition and re-erected at the Museum.  There is also the Great Moulton protestant chapel, dating from around 1890, and the ‘imposing’ factory of Robert Boby Limited, formerly the biggest factory in Bury St Edmunds that employed nearly 200 people, with much more on site than we can use in just one visit.  Then there’s the giant rabbits - but they’re another story..!

We will have both of the very rare Walsh and Clark paraffin ploughing engines running; although we won’t be able to plough up the Museum site (!), we will be able to use them in our period recreations.  Walsh and Clark were a company based at Guiseley, Leeds which introduced ploughing engines that started on petrol and could then be run on paraffin in 1913.  The Victoria ploughing engines, as they were known, were manufactured until the 1920s, when direct ploughing using tractors was beginning to take over from the traditional method of ploughing using two engines and a steel cable.  The horizontally-opposed twin-cylinder design bore more than a passing resemblance to the more traditional steam ploughing engine, possibly to encourage customers familiar with the traditional appearance of steam engines to buy into this new technology.  The boiler barrel is actually a store for up to four days’ supply of paraffin.  Depending on the terrain, a pair of engines could plough between seven and ten acres per day and had a heady top speed of five miles per hour in high gear when out on the road.  The Museum’s engines date from 1919, so are the better part of 100 years old.

Also available for our event will be the 105-year-old general purpose agricultural Burrell ten-ton compound traction engine, Empress of Britain, which dates from 1912.  Painted in the photogenic deep red ‘crimson manor’ livery of its manufacturer, we will be able to use the Empress around the site as part of our cameo scenes throughout the day.  Please note that the engine is currently subject to a boiler examination but, whether it steams or not, it will definitely be able to feature in a number of cameo scenes, either under its own power or appearing to be in steam.  We also expect at least one of the Museum's vintage tractors to be making an appearance.

Add to this appropriately dressed Museum staff and volunteers, along with a few of our own period re-enactors, and we feel we have the makings of an excellent high summer event.

The Museum entrance is located on Iliffe Way, Stowmarket, IP14 1DE.  There is a large car park adjacent to the Museum - £2.50 for a full day - plus an Asda supermarket.  Although the Museum is closed to the public on the day of our visit, the on-site Osier Cafe will be open during the day from 09.00 until 15.30 hours.

Come and join us for our first event at this great venue!

Event cost £65.00 per person.

 

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