We have been operating a phased approach to reopening at Bruce Castle Museum & Archive following the roadmap points. We have already welcomed researchers back to the Search Room by booked appointments, some school classes have also enjoyed their outdoor learning sessions back at Bruce Castle, we have had booked visits for well-being groups to the Museum to explore art on display, there have been small wedding ceremonies and we have been working with a Community Payback team in our courtyard area. We have also been delighted to welcome three more staff members to the museum and archive team at Bruce Castle this July.

This coming week we are looking forward to reopening our Museum galleries and exhibitions to more people with the first gallery now available to visitors with booked tickets. From Thursday 29 July you can book visits via our new online booking system to see the ‘Sisters, Sirens & Saints’ exhibition of paintings by Beatrice Offor, available each week going forward from Wednesday to Friday each week, at set times. In the coming weeks more galleries will be added and available for you too to book visits – so please look out for our upcoming notices.

Detail of the painting ‘Aglaie’ by Beatrice Offor

From the collections and © Bruce Castle Museum & Archive

If you are interested in doing research, then please do contact the Archive team by email [email protected] or by telephone (020 8489 4250 option 2) to book an appointment. For more details on our new Search Room procedures, times and booking requirements, do follow the link here.

 

We would love to see more visitors soon and to welcome you back at Bruce Castle.

 

Our phased approach to reopening Bruce Castle Museum & Archive is to make sure that we continue to act safely. In line with government guidance, visitors are encouraged to wear face coverings all the time whilst inside, unless they are exempt. Our staff are still working hard to keep you safe by wearing face coverings, and ensuring hand sanitiser stations and enhanced cleaning measures are in place. Please do not book or visit if you have any COVID-19 symptoms, or if you’ve been asked to self-isolate. On arrival, the NHS COVID-19 QR code is available to check in with using the app.

For those who have been visiting Bruce Castle Park, you will have hopefully seen our schools’ window art takeover programme in the Museum’s Little Open Out Gallery, with another school scheduled this summer. If you have passed by Bruce Castle, you may also have spotted scaffolding now up around the Tudor Round Tower. This is for the specialist repair and conservation work to the roof and brickwork of this unique Grade 1 listed building. We are grateful for the grant support received from Historic England to help undertake this work with the Council, and with Butler & Hegarty architects and Bakers of Danbury builders.

Telephones …

We also just wanted to point out that there have been a few difficulties recently for some people when contacting us by telephone. There has been an outage of the EE mast in the Tottenham area, but hopefully this will be rectified soon. If you need to get in touch, please do phone on 020 8489 4250 or put your enquiry in an email to [email protected]

Future dates for your diaries …

Our monthly evening and lunchtime talks programme is currently being finalised and will be resuming in late September, with more details of the programme and what to expect to follow …. But in the meantime …

 

Bruce Castle Museum & Archive will be participating in the new-style Open House Festival on 4 & 5 September with our new guided tours focussing on the outside the building and features in the immediate surroundings of the Museum, as well as some activities for families to explore the building and the park. The Friends of Bruce Castle will also be there to support us on the day. They will have a stall to share information of the invaluable work of the Friends and how they have supported educational and restoration projects at Bruce Castle (such as the current project to restore a painting by Beatrice Offor), and leaflets on how you too can join to be a Friend. Further details of Open House Festival will be circulated nearer the time.

From the collections of Bruce Castle Museum & Archive (© photographer: Warren Cooper)

 

Some of you will know that in the collections at Bruce Castle Museum & Archive we have the Highgate Roman Kiln. In support of the project to re-display the Roman kiln back at Highgate Wood where it was discovered over 50 years ago, you might be interested in hearing more about it from the Friends of Highgate Roman Kiln (FoHRK). On Monday evening 26 July, 8 – 9pm, FoHRK will be hosting the following online talk:

 

• Fire, Water, Wood & Clay: Technologies for Roman Britain, for our times and for the future

The return of the kiln to Highgate Wood is a project for the whole community. As examples of this side of our work, Trustee Charlie Andrew and Nick Peacey (Secretary of FoHRK) will describe managing archaeological experiments in replica Roman kiln-building to engage young people and explain FoHRK’s current and future initiatives with schools face-to-face and online.

 

If you would like to join the talk, please email Nick Peacey for the link: [email protected]

For more details about the Roman kiln, FoHRK and the project please follow the link here and the link to its fundraising initiative.

The kiln experiment at Highgate Wood, 1970.

From the collections of Bruce Castle Museum & Archive

As part of the council’s ‘People Need Parks’ programme, Haringey Parks Service and the Friends of Bruce Castle Park are also putting on an event very soon in Bruce Castle Park on Saturday 31 July at 4pm, when Quantum Theatre returns for their open-air theatre production of ‘Treasure Island’.

Picnics and pirate costumes positively encouraged!

Make Summer … in Haringey!

And there are a lot more cultural events besides going on in our area, as well as fun activities for young people. The special Make Summer in Haringey webpages has drawn together ideas, events and activities from different venues and organisations from around the borough. However you plan to spend your summer in Haringey, there’s so much to make, see and do…. And you can find out more just by following the link here: Make Summer in Haringey – which will be updated regularly with new events and activities happening.

Here you will find out more about places like Markfield Beam Engine & Museum (on 25 July) or events and initiatives going on amongst our Haringey Libraries or our very own free Bruce Castle Family Activity Packs that can be picked up from Bruce Castle and T On the Green (or free to download here with tree ID sheet here) from Thursday 29 July. You can do our Tree Trail around Bruce Castle Park alongside some fun art & craft ideas and resources in the pack (thanks to the Education team at Bruce Castle putting it all together and very kindly supported by the Friends of Bruce Castle). Or you can explore different areas around Haringey whilst taking a bit of history and making up your own walking trails by following our Women’s History Maps.

 

Deborah Hedgecock

Curator