Blog
Behind the Scenes at Bailiffgate
Our museum blog below features updates and stories about the work of Bailiffgate Museum and Gallery. This includes both activities in the museum itself and our community projects. These my involve working with a particular street or area to gather personal stories and facts about the community. They may also involve creating a database on a particular topic. Our well-used World War One database on our bailiffgate collections website is a good example of this.
Generally a blog has been written by one of our volunteers, so that you can gain a real-life picture of what it is like to do volunteer work at Bailiffgate.
Adeline’s Magic Finger Wins the Ghost Hunt
Adeline from Cumbria was the proud winner of this year’s Bailiffgate Ghost Hunt. The competition ran over the school half term weeks of Scotland and England. Participants had to find the 24 ghosts hiding around Bailiffgate Museum & Gallery, encouraging children to look carefully all around the exhibits. The prize was a gift voucher for […]
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A Delayed Publication
About 4 years ago the museum was contacted by an American author who was working on a book about the lives of sisters, Louise and Ida Cook. In the 1930s the sisters had helped to rescue a large number of Jewish people from Nazi Germany and Austria. The author, Isabel Vincent, knew that Louise and […]
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How George Wilkin helped saved lives
A feature of the recent Heritage weekend was an exhibition of Alnwick residents who had turned their hand to inventing something useful. One of these was George Wilkin, who was working as a plumber in Alnwick in the mid-1800’s. This date is extremely relevant, as the great Alnwick cholera outbreak took place in 1849, taking […]
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Make new Friends, Learn new Skills
“I moved up to Alnwick in November 2019, but had visited the museum earlier in July. I was so impressed that I became a Friend and volunteer, and within a few months a Trustee and the Company Secretary. The team at Bailiffgate never cease to amaze me. Their enthusiasm, passion, camaraderie and friendliness makes volunteering […]
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Publishing in a Covid Lockdown -Seaside 100, 2 Years On
It still feels like a bit of a treat to be able to stand up and speak in front of a live audience so I’m really looking forward to my upcoming talk at St James Centre for Bailiffgate Museum & Gallery. When my book Seaside 100 was published back in Spring 2020 the first Covid […]
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Please send us your Holiday Disaster stories
I suspect all of us have a tale of when things went disastrously wrong, either when we were a child being taken on a family holiday or as the adult doing the taking. The sort of thing that was far from funny at the time, but in hindsight is hilarious. The 2022 major summer exhibition […]
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Bailiffgate Wins Major National Award
Yesterday Bailiffgate Museum & Gallery was named winner of the Family Friendly Museum Award 2021 in an online ceremony hosted by art dealer and broadcaster, Philip Mould (BBC’s Fake or Fortune?) pictured above. Run by charity Kids in Museums, the national award is awarded annually to one museum, gallery, historic home or heritage site in […]
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Another Lucky Winner
A hugely popular running feature of Bailiffgate with children is our “Hunt the Mouse” competition. It gets them wandering around all 3 floors looking for the elusive mice, and hopefully viewing all sorts of interesting exhibits in the process. We run mouse hunts all year, but in the summer we love to tailor one especially […]
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Viking Village in the Marketplace August 8th
On Sunday 8th August a unique scene will greet visitors to Alnwick Market Place – a Viking Village with authentically costumed Norse Vikings in their tents demonstrating Viking Crafts. Bailiffgate has teamed up with the new leaseholders of the market (Market Place Management Ltd) to organise a special Sunday market with a wide range of […]
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