Farmland Museum 1969-1992

Farmland Museum interviews

Farmland Museum 1969-1992

Visitors watching barn machinery working; oats were crushed (for rabbit food) mangolds sliced (for cattle feed) Joe Haddock

The museum closed at Haddenham in 1992 after 23 years in the garden of 50, High Street and thanks to South Cambridge District Council was put in store; the blacksmith/wheelwrights shop was given to Burwell Museum; the replica saddler’s shop (formerly Thurmotts at Ely) was transported to Iron Bridge Gorge and all Haddenham  documents were handed over to the Parish Council.

After 5 years the trustees led by Lady Hughes of Wilburton, and thanks to a Heritage Lottery Grant, a new home was established at Denny Abbey, an English Heritage site off the A10.  Here the Farmland exhibits together with other Cambridgeshire items are on display and the Visitor Centre there is named after the Delanoys.

Farmland Museum No20 – side A.mp3 (MP3 25.9Mb)

Farmland Museum No20 – side B.mp3 (MP3 28.3Mb)

Vintage car outside newly-built Blacksmith Shop at Farmland Museum 1972. Keith the blacksmith and the Delanoy Boys are at the left

Two Old boys (Johnny Wright and Jack Keridge) yarning at the Farmland Museum 1979, contemporaries of Joe Haddock. Thulborn Brothers

Group of helpers at Farmland Museum in special costume for Blossom and Bygone Day 1986 Jean Richards

Charles Bester introducing Clement and Jill Freud who “opened” the Bygones Building in 1976

All audio and photographic material Copyright © 1970-2016 Lorna Delanoy

The Purpose of the Farmland Museum
Letter dated to Lorna Delanoy c.1992–93 (written following news of the proposed museum closure)

“It was all part of a very alive life which was going on all around us. Quite unique, because it was all in the village where it had always belonged. Very much of importance to reinforce the learning process, and bringing to the present, and the future, that reminder to fresher minds than my own, to share the thought; ‘that that was how it was done,—and that was how it was!'”

Commentary
This is perhaps the most eloquent defence of the Haddenham Farmland Museum found in the correspondence. It emphasises the relationship between artefacts and place.

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