Brewhouse Yard Collections

The History & Archaeology Team curate a wide variety of collections displayed in a number of sites within the museum service. These collections include:

Community  History: The history of the Nottingham Community History collection goes back to the opening of the Castle Museum in 1878. The collection is a unique and fascinating one, very useful for illuminating the rich and varied history of Nottingham and its people on many different levels.
Local people have been very generous with their gifts of information, books and objects to help record the history of the Nottingham area.

Our aims are to record, acquire and interpret material relating to Nottingham and its peoples from 1600 to the present day, working in conjunction with other curatorial colleagues in Nottingham Museums.
The Community History collections develop a sense of pride, sense of place and sense of identity in the diverse and multicultural communities which make up Nottingham and are contributing to its history.

We cover the broad categories of Community Life, Working Life, Domestic and Personal Life.

Community Life

• Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
• Religion
• Calendar Customs
• Rites of Passage
• Central and Local Government: as it relates to Nottingham
• Wartime
• Education
• Law and Order
• Monarchy
• Organisations
• Topographical Views and Local Portraits, Newspapers, Broadsheets

Domestic Life

• Buildings:
• Cooking:
• Furnishings:
• Gardening
• Heating
• Housekeeping
• Laundering and Clothing Care
• Lighting
• Ornaments
• Pastimes
• Pest Control & Sanitation
• Sport
• Time Keeping

Personal Life

• Infant Raising
• Medical
• Personal Finance
• Personal Records: including photographs
• Personal Toilet
• Reading and Writing
• Shaving
• Smoking and Tobacco

Working Life

Work which is hand-powered and workshop-based as opposed to machine-powered and factory-based has tended to be the division of working life between the Industrial collections and Social History. Latterly the Industrial Museum has focused on technology. Social History also collects the retail end products of many locally made items

Nottingham museums hold some 6000 ethnographical items acquired since 1878. Most of them derive from 8 major collections, mainly from local collectors. There is something from every continent but many cultures are represented by unbalanced collections reflecting bias on the part of the collector or donors towards weapons, pottery, or some other specific aspect. The collections are varied and contain much good material. The largest groups are from Nigeria, Oceania, India, Burma, Japan and Peru although there are also important items of clothing from North America. The Japanese arms and armour given by Sir Frank Bowden, the early Nigerian pottery, and Chimu pottery from Peru are important specialised collections.

Archaeology

The collections range from the Stone Age to around AD 1600 and focus on the development of human settlement in Nottingham and its environs. Highlights of the collection include; Palaeolithic material from the Beeston Gravels, a small Upper Palaeolithic collection from the important site at Creswell Crags, a nationally important collection of Bronze Age weaponry from the Trent basin around Nottingham, two Bronze Age log boats from Clifton, grave goods from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Broughton Lodge, late Saxon and Medieval finds from Nottingham, including those from Halifax Place and Nottingham Castle and Medieval and Post-Medieval pottery from Nottingham, one of the finest collections in the country.

Paper and photographic archives are available for some of the more recent professional excavations deposited with the museum service, for others, the information is less well recorded. Paper documents relating to Nottingham's famous cave systems are also collected within the archive and databases recording finds, surveys, historical records and World War II air raid shelters linked to the caves are currently under development.

Antiquities:

Like many collections dating back to the Victorian period there are a number of foreign archaeological antiquities within the collection. Most notably amongst these are the spectacular finds from the Temple of Diana at Nemi, Italy excavated by Lord Savile of Rufford in 1885. These include a remarkable collection of votives in the form of figurines, anatomical models, animals, bronzes, lamps and coinage, in addition to decorative reliefs and sculptural pieces from the site. A collection of glass plate negatives, taken during the excavations, is also held within the archaeological archive.

Other highlights include a fine collection of Cypriot and Greek colonial pottery (mainly from Apulia and Campania in Southern Italy) and Egyptian artefacts excavated by the British School of Archaeology in Egypt and the Egyptian Exploration Society at San-El-Hagur, Tanis, Naukratis, Harageh and others.

Numismatics

Although treated as a separate collecting area numismatics are very closely intertwined with archaeology, social and economic history and military history. The collection encompasses the development of Nottingham and its environs but also includes foreign items relating to British colonial history and the world cultures collections. Highlights of the collection include; the previously mentioned republican coinage from the Temple of Diana at Nemi, Roman coin hoards from Stanford on Soar, Nottingham, Broxtowe, Calverton, Hoveringham, Warsop, Kirkby in Ashfield and Newstead, Medieval mint pennies from Nottingham and hoards from Skegby and Fishpool, locally issued tokens from the 17th to 19th centuries, German ceramic tokens, Nottingham banknotes and Nottingham school attendance medals.

Military Collections

Much of the local collecting of military material has been undertaken in recent years by the Sherwood Foresters, based at Chilwell in Nottinghamshire. They currently curate galleries devoted to this subject within the Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery and Derby Museum & Art Gallery. While these collections do not attempt to record the military history of the Nottingham area in any great depth, they do include notable material from Captain Albert Ball V.C., the Robin Hood Rifle Volunteers and an Enfield rifle presented by the Duke of Newcastle to Private Brownsword of the Robin Hoods in 1862.

Locks and Keys

One of the first items to grace this collection was the ceremonial Chubb lock and key used by Edward, Prince of Wales to open the Midland Counties Art Museum (now the Castle Museum & Art Gallery) in 1878. Since then excavations around Nottingham and the donation of a fine collections of Roman to 19th century keys and 16th to 19th century locks by W.J.Thompson, have added depth to this subject area.

Firearms

The collecting of firearms began a year after the opening of the Castle Museum & Art Gallery in 1878. Highlights include, the Wollaton Hall muskets and cannon, two pistols which formerly belonged to Captain Albert Ball V.C. and the barrel of a breech loading cannon excavated from a well at Nottingham Castle. Other items from this collection with no clear historical links to Nottingham are currently being reviewed with regard to the current collecting policy.

Exhibitions

The Community Showcase Gallery provides an excellent opportunity for local groups, societies and individuals to display material they have produced, collected or researched to the wider community. Usually booked for periods of 3 months at a time the relatively small (approximately 3.4 X 5 m²) size of this room makes the task of putting together an exhibition together for display at Brewhouse less daunting than at some other venues. Two lockable shelved display cases and a choice of screw-in board or Velcro panelling add flexibility to the display opportunities. Guidance on display methods can be provided for those who have not attempted a gallery display previously.

For more information regarding exhibition opportunities at Brewhouse Yard please contact Community Historian Suella Postles on (0115) 9153602.