42 By Mike Rowley, Chair Exciting progress at Dartmouth Museum D


artmouth Museum has had a busy year. We’ve seen over 10% more visitors this year than last, which is a great achievement in a difficult time for tourism in the South West and builds on the already strong position established recently. We think this is partly due to the success of our new exhibition ‘Tomas


Newcomen and the machines that changed the world’, featuring the amazing models of the David Hulse Collection, together with the display we opened in April to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D Day.


We started the year by refreshing the entrance hall, making it more welcoming and clearer for new visitors. It was a great team effort by the Museum maintenance team led by David Heron. Te Museum has no


paid staff and relies on its 45 strong volun- teer team. “We open daily apart from the Christmas holiday, and our cleaning month in January, which is unusual for a local Museum, and without the stewarding team it simply wouldn’t be possible”, said Carol Lingard, Secretary and organiser of that team We’ve also been very pleased with the response we’ve


Image of the new entrance


had to our open days for town residents. We’ve had 42 new members this year, which is 4 or 5 times more than we normally get, and that’s a testament to the in- terest in our local history amongst the town. Members can visit the Museum free any time, and can arrange a time to visit the archive with a member of the Archive team. “Tis year we’ve continued rebuilding the Archive team”, said Archive Manager, Andy Williams.


“We


now have a team of 6 with a variety of skills and inter- ests. It will mean we can take on new projects, such as reorganising our Members’ Library and we’ll also be able to review parts of the collection which has never been on display.” We need to do this because we’ve had some amaz- ingly generous and important donations this year which need more space! First, David Hulse


David Marsh’s Painting of Dartmouth in 1620.


completed his giſt to Dartmouth by adding all his drawings, re-


Image of David Hulse and Mike Rowley in


front of one of David’s model engines


search and writings about Newcomen, to 2023’s giſt of the 8 atmospheric engine models. It’s truly an amazing legacy and right that it should be kept here in Dart- mouth, Tomas Newcomen’s home. We’ll be working on getting the drawings on to the website, so they can be bought by those interested in building the models, or simply to understand how they worked. Secondly. we’ve also had a fascinating donation


from Cris Nash comprising all his research into one of Dartmouth’s largest buildings that has been lost for 200 years: Gales’ Great Place. When it was built, it occupied a large plot from the north bank of the lower ferry to beyond the Dartmouth Yacht Club. Cris has traced its ownership from Tomas Gale in 1471 to its many owners down the years to 1974. In total he has created 17,000 files of information about the history of the buildings and the land on which it stood, which will be a resource for local historians for years to come. Tirdly, we’re also


delighted that artist David Marsh has converted his loan of his astonishing depic- tion of Dartmouth in 1620 to a donation, and the Museum will now fully benefit from the sales of the marvellous canvas print and the book that accompanies the painting.


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