National Award for Town’s Two Museums

The world’s first Garden City’s two museums jointly scooped a national award after staving off strong competition from many museums over the country.

The First Garden City Heritage Museum, owned and managed by Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation – and North Herts District Council’s town Museum and Art Gallery caught the judge’s eye for their recent ‘Discover Norton’ project that was run jointly by the two museums.

The museums were awarded the Museums and Galleries Month/Museums Journal Commendation for 2006.

They both received £500 towards future events. 

‘Discover Norton’ highlighted the heritage of the village. The chief components of the project were two exhibitions, one at each museum. Letchworth Museum produced an oral history film entitled ‘Norton 2006’, which included interviews with local residents and youngsters from Norton Primary School, about the past and future of the village. Also, guided walks around Norton were held, volunteers were recruited for an archaeology project next spring and there were also two illustrated talks that were well attended.

In its exhibition, the Heritage Museum looked at the history of the village and was packed full of paintings, ephemera and photographs and included many architectural items from Norton digs, plus a competition and activities for the children.

The judging panel included Chris Bailey, Director of the Northern Ireland Museums Council; Liz Mackenzie, Vice President of the British Association of Friends Museums), Gordon Cummings, Director of the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden, Richard Munro of South West Museums and Sharon Heal, Editor of ‘Museums Journal.’