Collection
It is unusual to find a museum housed in an old church, surrounded by a very large, old graveyard. With so many visitors coming from all over the world to Woburn in search of their ancestors, we decided to identify as many graves as we could to help our visitors in their search. A retired group of archeologists mapped the graveyard, noting the position of every stone – some 1300, 1160 of which have legible inscriptions! Then, with the help of a team of volunteers from Santander Bank, every legible stone was recorded and the names and dates indexed alphabetically. The index now lives by the desk and is well used.
Our main graphic board in the museum is about Eleanor of Castile, the beloved wife of Edward 1, and the Eleanor Crosses. After she died in Nottinghamshire in December 1290 her body was taken back to London to be buried in Westminster Abbey. The winter journey took 12 days and Woburn was one of the places en route where the cortege rested overnight. The King decreed that a cross should be erected at each resting place. Woburn’s cross disappeared long ago but probably stood on The Pitchings, the cobbled area beside the old town hall.
Among our treasured artefacts is a “Woburn” range, manufactured in the village and donated to the museum by Woburn Abbey after it was removed from a past Estate worker’s cottage when central heating was installed. On the ledge above the range and the old kitchen display, stands our Victorian rocking horse, and nearby are two ancient Woburn cricket bats, one dating from 1822. Sadly, Woburn’s cricket team disbanded in the 1980s but there is a thriving cricket club in the village of Eversholt, close to Woburn.
A treasure from the 1990s also on display is the painting of Woburn buildings by George Large, painted on a round wooden board. George, an eminent artist, lived in Woburn for many years and painted the roundel as a gift to the museum.
New addition to the museum's collection - Georgian Dolls House
The Georgian Dolls House exhibited at the Woburn Heritage Centre is a three-storeyed, dolls’ house, containing 10 rooms, furnished to keep with its style, wired to connect to electric mains to power chandeliers and other lights and features.
The front opens to reveal the entrance hall/staircase and eight fully furnished rooms – kitchen, library, dining room (table fully set for six diners), lounge, two bedrooms, dressing room with ensuite behind.
There are three chandeliers and carpets in all rooms that the former owner had painstakingly embroidered and she made most of the wooden furnishings from a variety of hardwoods.
The roof lifts to reveal two servants’ rooms that are reached via a concealed staircase from the floor below.
The previous owner, Mrs Valerie Henbest, has been involved in craft work most of her life. In the 1980s she became interested in dolls’ houses and in particular making miniature furniture and carpets, generally 1/12th size. She attended numerous specialist courses at the WI Denman College in Oxfordshire. The Georgian dolls’ house was commissioned by Valerie and made to her specifications and was completed in 1998.
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Detail photos of the interiour will be revealed weekly on our Facebook page throughout the current Winter closure of the Woburn Heritage Centre starting on 31st January 2024.
