Eden Valley Museum

It's been suggested that I work with the Spittal Cross Estate, with both young and old and that I talk to Jane Higgs the Hon. Curator at the Eden Valley Museum.  An independant museum housed in a beautiful old building on the high street.

Jane's already been collecting oral histories from people that lived on both the Stangrove Estate and Spittals Cross Estate and was instrumental, along with West Kent Xtra in hosting the 40 and 50 year celebrations on 19th September.

There's a temporary exhibition on about how the estates came into being, the feeling of the local people at the time, the protests about Londoners swamping their rural idyll and the locals houses that were knocked down to make way for the new homes.  It's a great snapshot of rural life in the 1950's and also what living conditions were like for the people that lived and worked in London at this time.

Rural industries included cricket ball making, a tannery and obviously beer making and farming.  I was particularly struck by a case containing personal artefacts, dolls, diaries, notebooks, photographs and maps from a local farm and the farmers wife's diary, detailing only the amount of milk she sold each date and a note about their favourite cows Buttercup and Snow White.