Burwell Museum Coronavirus update

Like everywhere, we don't really know what's going on at the moment, but here is an update on how things are for us right now: 

We are closed to both the public and volunteers for the foreseeable future. Most of the volunteers who keep us going are in the more "vulnerable" groups, as are a large proportion of our visitors, so we won't be reopening until it's very clear that it's safe to do so. Events in April and May have already been cancelled and it's likely that June will follow unless things change dramatically in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks to a grant from East Cambridgeshire District Council and a legacy last year from Mr Michael Mitcham, we're very lucky to be in a good position financially. We're very grateful to both the council and to Mr. Mitcham and his family for that, as it means we can continue to pay our staff during lockdown and spend the time making sure that our paperwork is all up to date (we'll spare you all the details, but it will be good to have it done!). Many small museums are struggling, though, so if you want to support local museums and industrial heritage then our friends at Prickwillow Museum, Ramsey Rural Museum and the Cambridge museum of Technology are among many appealing for help at the moment. 

Our ongoing projects will continue as soon as we can - we're still waiting for planning permission for the path to the windmill, so we'll need to wait until the council has finished dealing with the crisis, and once our volunteers are able to safely come back to work we will continue with site maintenance and refreshing displays. If you are going past the windmill you may notice that it's looking a bit bedraggled- we've removed most of the shutters to make sure it's safe while we're not working on it. Our next project will be to paint each shutter and put them back again, so although this isn't the kind of year we'd planned for the 200th anniversary year of the windmill we will get it looking smart again as soon as we can! 

We wish all of our volunteers, visitors and supporters well and hope to welcome you back when we can do so safely. 

Thank you for an amazing season in 2019!

Many, many thanks from all at Burwell Museum and Windmill!

Thank you to everyone who has supported, visited and/or volunteered at Burwell Museum and Windmill this year. We’ve had over 3,500 visitors over the year and our amazing volunteers have put in over 4,000 hours between them to make sure that the museum continues to be a really great day out. We’re also very grateful to the Parish Council, the Carnival, Cambridgeshire County Council and Newmarket Waitrose for financial support over the year, and to Newmarket Tesco and Burwell Co-op for giving us gifts in kind (and in the Co-op’s case lots of very much appreciated staff time). Thank you to everyone who has been to the museum either as a visitor or a volunteer in 2019!

Do you have any time to spare?

Although we are now closed to visitors for the winter, there is still a lot going on behind the scenes and WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Are you enthusiastic, community-minded and want to offer some time to a local charity? If this sounds like you then please get in touch about becoming a volunteer with the museum. No previous experience required and you'll receive a very warm welcome! We're especially looking for:

Mill volunteers: We need more people to help with the Mill as we work to prepare for its 200th birthday next year. Mill volunteers work on Tuesdays, usually from around 9.30am until 4pm. You don't have to commit to every Tuesday but it's helpful if you are able to say in advance when you will be there so that work can be planned. Jobs range from routine maintenance tasks to operating the mill itself; full training is provided for the jobs involved. If you want to find out more, you are welcome to come to the museum on a Tuesday or to contact Colin, our Mill manager, on cmarshall@cantab.net.

Site maintenance volunteers: Keeping the museum site going needs lots of people for a wide range of jobs including painting, repairing things and keeping all of our buildings clean and tidy. Previous experience of plumbing, electrics, IT systems etc. would be massively useful but there are plenty of jobs which don't require specialist skills! If you can spare us time on a Tuesday or Thursday to help either with a specific job or with general maintenance tasks, we'd love to hear from you at volunteers@burwellmuseum.org.uk or on 01638 605544.

We've had a great summer at the museum!

The last of our children's holiday activities went well today, with lots of people planting cress seeds to learn about our farming heritage. We've had a great summer all round (helped by some wonderful weather) and it's been great to welcome so many people to our children's activities. We've also welcomed groups from two WIs, Felix Coaches, a car club and the Mother's Union. Now we're looking forward to Heritage Open Days, which for us will be on the 15th, 19th and 22nd of September. On the 15th and 19th we're offering free entry to the museum, then on the 22nd we have our folk celebration with local musicians and dancers. We'll be looking at "People Power" through our collections, including a special guest appearance by the winning soapbox from the Newmarket Soapbox Derby.

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.