From maps to dragons, events at Buxton Museum

from Treasure Maps to Dragons

the first events for "Hoards"

April in Buxton Museum

We're getting going on our plans for Hoards now....the programme is out, the ideas are in, reckless enthusiasm is shaping the creativity..we will have dragons, there will be golden stones and ferocious piggy banks!

First Creeping Toad events

there is a wider programme of activity - link to follow

TRICKY TREASURE MAPS

Thursday 18^th April

10am – 12 noon

Where would you hide your hoard?

What clues would you offer to the lost treasures of Grin Low, the buried wonders of Pavilion Gardens, or the Terrible Treasures of Skellybob Wood?

10 paces, 2 paces. 

A hop, a skip and a jump. 

Head north and east 

Or west and south. 

Turn around and sing….under  the bridge and over the river, 

Behind the rock, 

Behind the rocks,

Behind the last hope of any help…..

Join artist Sarah Males for a morning of wild invention: draw your own treasure map. Add as many wonderful things and terrible obstacles as can fit on a crumpled sheet of paper

No ideas? No problem! Just take a wander through the Wonders of the Peaks gallery, or even better, loiter in the Hoards exhibition…

• Materials provided
• Free
• No booking needed: just drop by and join in
• Last entry 11.30

This is a Creeping Toad event for Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of the Hoards Event Programme

Hoards: a hidden history of ancient Britain

A British Museum and Salisbury Museum Partnership Exhibition

This exhibition runs from Saturday 13^th April to Sunday 16^th June, 2019 in Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

HERE BE DRAGONS

Thursday 25th April

10am – 12 noon

What will guard your hoard?

Or whose hoard are you setting out to steal? Will you slide a golden coin from under the fiery belly and watchful gaze of Smaug the Dragon? Will the Wyrm of Wormhill find its treasure plundered? Or will l there be a dragon under your bed who will wrap herself up in dressing gowns and gold and keep your treasure quite, quite safe?

Then, we should remember that Gryphons are the Hereditary Guardians of Treasure so maybe you would like an eagle-headed, lion-bodied, wide-winged friend nesting in the shrub at the bottom of your garden. Or maybe we just need a fluffy kitten to distract people…..

On this morning, we’ll be making dragons….just little ones but as friendly or as ferocious as you like

• Materials provided
• Free
• No booking needed: just drop by and join in
• Last entry 11.30

This is a Creeping Toad event for Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of the Hoards Event Programme

Hoards: a hidden history of ancient Britain

A British Museum and Salisbury Museum Partnership Exhibition

This exhibition runs from Saturday 13^th April to Sunday 16^th June, 2019 in Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Watch out for our Golden Day 

on Sunday 21^st April, details to follow

Hoards: gold lost, wonders discovered

Hoards: a hidden history of ancient Britain

a torc from the Leekfrith Hoard

A British Museum and Salisbury Museum Partnership Exhibition

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Saturday 13 April to Sunday 16 June 2019

Preview: Saturday 13 April, 2–4pm

Discover buried treasure in an exhibition that focuses on hoards in ancient Britain and the stories these finds tell us about life and adventures in the past. Why did people hide precious objects in the ground? Why they did not retrieve them? The exhibition brings together

Coins from the Reynard's Kitchen Cave hoard

finds from the British Museum and Salisbury Museum, including spectacular Iron Age gold torcs and recent discoveries from Wessex. There will also be hoards from Derbyshire and the Peak District including additional material from Beeston Tor

Treasure is coming to Buxton Museum. Or rather, treasures new to us but old in their making, are coming to the Museum. A walk through the Wonders of the Peak today unfolds marvels and things that are indeed treasures – at least for me. There are hoards of bones, skull wonders and prehistoric tool magnificences. But for most people “hoards” means treasure that glitters, gold that gleams, gems that shine, jewellery that glows.

a brooch from Beeston Tor

Silver coins spilling from a pot, an old bag, worn thin by the centuries pours coins across a cave floor, a brooch and brooches hidden a thousand years ago come back to light and wonder…..Buxton Museum is hosting Hoards…..

https://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/tours_and_loans/uk_loans_and_tours/current_tours_and_loans/hoards.aspx

Disappointed that tadpoles don’t usually count as “hoards” (but almost certainly as hordes!), Creeping Toad, all the same, is coordinating part of the lively events programme that will go with the Hoards exhibition. There is a lot of activity here and I’m going to separate it into several posts….

think of a hoard as "something precious"

Getting you started!

make your own treasure

The events programme as a whole includes a Finds Day, talks by museum experts, a weekend with a moneyer making coins the old-fashioned way, and useful advice from Citizen’s Advice Bureau on managing whatever hoard you have (or don’t have). The Toad events will be aimed at families but are open to anyone and everyone who would like to join in. The link below will take you to a list of all these events. I’ll post more details about the Toad ones over the next couple of weeks

LINK: https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/buxton-museum/events/buxton-museum-and-art-gallery-events.aspx

There will be a thread running through the Toad events: an invitation to build your own Hoard, where you can answer the following questions (you don’t need to do every event – just join us for one would be great!)

a lost glitter among the stones

Finding gold: A Golden Day, Curious Coins events

Where would you hide your Hoard? Tricky treasure maps event.

What would you hide your Hoard in? Silk Purses and Sow’s Ears, Treasure Chests, Pottery Piggies events

How would you keep your Hoard safe? Here Be Dragons and Giants, Dragons and Terrible Traps events

Then there will be (more sensible?) sessions that will include

• A Finds day
• A visit from a Moneyer – how coins used to be made
• Information sessions will offer advice on modern finances
• Morning Talks will explore Viking conquest, understanding hoards and the wonderful Leekfrith Hoard (only found in 2017!)

I hope this has whetted the long sharp knives of your excitement and you will join us for some Hoarded adventures over the spring!

Phot credits:

Leekfrith c/o Stoke Museums

Reynard's Kitchen Cave hoard: National Trust

Beeston Tor and other Brooch: Buxton Museum

other photos: G MacLellan 

Hoards: a hidden history of ancient Britain is a British Museum and Salisbury Museum Partnership Exhibition, generously supported by the Dorset Foundation
Supported by Museum Development East Midlands

Crystalline: Science Week 2019

Crystalline

British Science Week 

at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery 

public event Saturday 16th March

last time, we invented crystal patterns

Abstraction

During British Science Week (9 – 16 March 2019), Buxton Museum and Art Gallery will be hosting the artist Will Hurt as part of the BM125 celebrations. Will’s work explores unusual ways of working with the minerals in the Museum collection 

During the week (11 - 15th) Will will be based in the Museum galleries working with schools and other groups. If you are interested, contact the Museum who will put you in touch with Will.

email: buxton.museum@derbyshire.gov.uk
Tel: 01629 533540

On Saturday 16^th, we are having a Minerals afternoon with all sorts of exciting things going on

With Will, you might:

• Make Mineral Sounds. Place minerals from the Museum’s collections on to turntables and listen to them make music. Custom software and webcams translate the silhouettes of minerals into audible soundscapes.
• Draw Minerals. Use an iPad to create images of your own virtual minerals. Draw geometry inspired by minerals into virtual space, choose sizes and colours then save and print your images.
• Create Mineral Abstractions. Interact with a large touchscreen to explore an audio-visual composition created in response to electron microscope images of minerals.

Musician Oliver Payne will also be joining us on the Saturday to do a short 20min sound performance using Will's Crystalline software and some of his own contraptions. 

 

Draw your own minerals

Other activities include

Growing Crystals Kits: prepare your own mineral mix so you can just “add water and wait” - grow your own crystal gardens or Borax "sort-of-snowflakes"

Make a mineral zoetrope: design and make your own flickering crystal magic lantern

 

crystals grown in earlier events - thanks, Jess!

Event details

Date: Saturday 16^th March

Time: 1 – 4pm

Joining in:

No booking needed, just drop by and join in: last new entries 3.30

Free

Materials provided

the shape and surface of a mineral gives us sound and music