Re: Devizes Museum - hoorah - sort of! | Forum

Wiltshire 25

Image by Chance

Devizes Museum

more_vert

VenerableBottyBurp Feb 16, 2007 13:17:33

Replying to Littlestone

I am not being that naughty really, think about this:

Devizes was chosen by the Wilts Arch Soc in 1853 as an HQ not only because it was the centre of the county for travel by horse, but seen to be the centre. Not Swindon, not Salisbury, not the county town of Trowbridge - the centre. Now like cottage hospitals, country pubs, village schools, rural shops, everything is being centralised because people have access to personal modes of travel/phones/internet. This initially was going to work in favour of Devizes - five years ago the county records office was planning to move to Devizes along with the national photo archive, however that went to Bradford and the county RO has moved to Chippenham because of the transport infrastructure. The flip side is that those from the south of the county will start keeping their own archives and historians won't know where everything is and have to travel round to find it. The one thing that the Wilts Arch could do to centralise Wiltshire collections and make them accessible (add the argument her 'how much is Stonehenge worth?') is to relocate to the place where the visitors already go and attempt to democratise the visitor experience.

I might just add that moving to Avebury would not be work as well as people visiting the site already spend all day and have plenty to see and do) whereas at the famous place they average a stay of 20 minutes and get propaganda shoved at them by EH.

VBB

nigelswift Feb 16, 2007 14:07:43

Replying to VenerableBottyBurp

You talk good.

If ever it happened, where would you place it? Next to/part of the new Visitor Centre? The thing is, a suggestion like that would be an argument in favour of downsizing the monster proposal and having several more modest visitors centres spread around instead (hooray!). The museum could be situated further away, with its own parking, relieving the traffic pressure elsewhere and it could have its own shuttle bus to the stones for those that wanted it.

Littlestone Feb 16, 2007 14:56:54

Replying to VenerableBottyBurp

The one thing that the Wilts Arch could do to centralise Wiltshire collections and make them accessible (add the argument here 'how much is Stonehenge worth?') is to relocate to the place where the visitors already go and attempt to democratise the visitor experience.

Yes, I see your point, but isn't that sort of democratising catering to the casual visitor? How many of those visitors go back to Stonehenge on a regular basis? Wot about us lot, and the more serious researcher? Do we really want to go all the way to Stonehenge every time we want to check something out, creating more traffic and more visitors at an already congested site? You can get to Devizes from most parts of Wiltshire a heck of a lot easier than you can get to Stonehenge; you can park easily there, take a stroll down to the Museum and spend a quiet couple of hours there without hoards of other people milling about.

There's a bit of a similarity here with Sutton Hoo and the British Museum; the majority of artefacts discovered at Sutton Hoo are in the BM, while Sutton Hoo has the barrow itself, of course, and an excellent visitor centre with replicas and reconstructions (and a few of the original artefacts). Pity the replicas aren't in the British Museum and the originals at Sutton Hoo ;-)