Settling into the summer

We had a very warm start to our summer holiday activities, with record temperatures in Cambridgeshire last Thursday, but we're hoping to return to normal with light drizzle expected this week! We'll be spending the summer holidays finding out about different materials on Thursday afternoons; we made some amazing trophies for all sorts of achievements last week and I've spent some of this morning sawing up clothes pegs to make rag rugging tools for this week's work on cloth. If you're a little bit old for that sort of thing (although there's no age limit, everyone is welcome!) then we still have our temporary exhibition about Burwell's industrial history and all of our usual exhibition spaces (see map below) and the fine weather is a great time to come and explore our indoor and outdoor spaces.

Looking forward to the summer

It's really glorious weather at the museum as I'm writing this and we hope it continues as we start a jam-packed summer of events! We'll celebrate the start of the summer holidays with our summer fete on the 21st of July, with a packed line up of local musicians, and then explore what history is made of with children's activities every Thursday afternoon from 1.30 to 4.30. Come and hear stories, take part in craft activities and explore the museum's collections to find out about different materials, starting with metal on the 25th of July.

A busy couple of weeks!

We had a great end to last month with the first of our "history is made of..." school holiday activities, with lots of families joining us to find out about bones, plastic and carbolic soap! The activities will continue every Thursday in the summer holidays so that visitors can explore the whole of the museum collection by looking at what it's made of.
June is the peak of the museum season, although as I write the rain seems to be putting people off a bit. We're really hoping for good weather next week, when we have three different WI group visits , our usual U3A French conversation class on Thursday and then Classic Car day on Sunday. Then we'll round off the month with a visit from Mepal and Witcham, one of our favourite schools. We've welcomed several new volunteers this year but we could still do with more; let us know if you'd like to get involved!

Events programme for the rest of the year

We had a great time at National Mills Weekend, welcoming over 250 visitors in the glorious weather and raising just under £500 for museum funds. Thank you very much to everyone who came, and to our wonderful musicians! Now we can concentrate on the rest of the year. Our events programme is:

23 May tea and talk: Burwell Brick and Tile works with Paul Hawes

30 May half term activities: Bone and more

13 June late opening for Burwell festival: free entry to the vintage vehicles gallery

15 June Burwell carnival

23 June Classic Car Day 

21 July Summer Fete

25 July to 29 August (Thursday afternoons) summer holiday activities: What is History made of?

15,19 and 22 September Heritage Open Days

24 October half term activities: Water

More information about all events can be found on our website - we hope to welcome you to one or more of them! 

A successful start and preparations for National Mills Weekend

We had a great opening weekend, helped by the glorious weather; over 300 people visited the Mill and museum over Easter Sunday and Monday. Now we're straight into preparations for National Mills Weekend on the 11th and 12th of May, which should be a brilliant opportunity to showcase the mill with free entry, musical entertainment and the usual stalls and tea room. Last year we had a very special event and attracted 628 people, and next year will be the 200th anniversary of the mill, so we've got a lot to celebrate over the weekend. Hope to see you there!