1. A day’s photography set against the superb backdrops available at the Museum of East Anglian Life, Monday 21st May 2018
Stowmarket, Suffolk

A day’s photography set against the superb backdrops available at the Museum of East Anglian Life, Monday 21st May 2018

A full day’s photography set against the superb backdrops at the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket posing the unique pair of Burrell ploughing engines plus a host of re-enactors.

£65.00

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About this event

Following a very successful first visit to the Museum of East Anglian Life at Stowmarket in Suffolk, we are delighted to be making a return visit to this beautiful location for 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. We expect to be recreating scenes using two Burrell agricultural engines and a paraffin-powered engine plus re-enactors in appropriate dress 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 77-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. The Museum has many historic buildings which include the impressive Abbot’s Hall and walled gardens, built in 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 employing nearly 200 people. There is much more on site than we can use in just one visit, but we’ll do our best..! 

Amongst the highlights of this visit will be the appearance of the pair of Burrell ploughing engines, believed to be unique survivors of the steam age. Of the many thousands of engines that left the Burrell factory in Thetford, only 142 ploughing engines were amongst them, the first dating back to 1860 and the final pair manufactured for a German customer in 1914. No.776 The Countess and No.777 The Earl represent the only pair of Burrell ploughing engines to survive into preservation and we are extremely pleased to have arranged for them to appear outdoors for our event. The engines are single cylinder, built in 1879 for a customer in West Sussex by Burrells under license from John Fowler & Company of Leeds.  It is many years since the engines steamed but with the aid of oily rags and similar we will be able to pose the engines around the site and create the impression of them being in steam, along with appropriately-dressed staff and volunteers. 

We will have at least one of the very rare Walsh and Clark paraffin ploughing engines running; though 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 who 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 traditional methods of ploughing using two engines and a steel cable. The appearance of the engines 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 Museum’s engines date from 1919, so are the better part of 100 years old. The sight and sound of one of the engines in action was a highlight of our event in July 2017. 

This proved one of the best events of 2017 and we hope that many of you will come to savour the atmosphere of this wonderful location.

Event cost £65.00 per person.

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