Dress Down Friday….

Hi all!

Hope that you all had a wonderful Easter break! It’s that time of the week again and this Friday we are blogging about a mixture of what’s been happening at CHAC during the week and also a new Fish Friday post! (Finally!)

 

This week at CHAC were been thinking a lot about our costume collection – perhaps its because we ate too much chocolate last weekend and our own clothes aren’t fitting so well anymore. Our main aim for the week was to repackage our lace collection after some expert advice from the lovely ladies at Honiton All Hallows Museum (see previous post for details!). What started off as a quick hour or two job turned into nearly a whole day of wrapping, rolling and folding.

The lace all laid out as found before the re-packing began

Two lace butterflies – examples of Venetian Needle-Point hand made lace – The highlight of CHACs lace collection.

The lace all packed up and ready to be stored in acid free tissue and calico in a conservation standard box – lovely!

 

But of course it wouldn’t be a Friday without a Fish Friday post – so on the theme of costume we have selected a receipt from Mr Clive Alexander’s Ladies Outfitters in Middle Street in Yeovil for one Coat – paid £3.10s. What really made us interested in this item however is the date, dated 25th of April 1932 – 82 years old today!

Mr Alexander’s shop is mentioned in The Kelly’s Directory of Businesses in Somerset and was based at 38b Middle Street, Yeovil which is now the site of the Nationwide Building Society – Kelly’s Directory shows that by 1939 Mr Alexander’s shop was also occupying the premise next door – 38a,  so he must have been popular! It’s just a shame we don’t have any photographs of the 1930s shop!

 

If you remember Mr Alexander’s Ladies Outfitters, bought any items there or have any photos we’d love to hear from you! 

  

photographs, lace and an apology …

Hello! apologies for the lack of posts this last week, it’s been a very very busy week and a half at CHAC! We’ve been getting up to all sorts and have had lots of interesting visits!

Some highlights…

 

On Friday CHAC participated in English Tourism Week by hosting a photo day which was really successful. We had 5 people book in for an afternoon of looking through our collection of historic photographs ,teas and coffees and just general enjoyment. The group were also joined by one of our regular visitors who has to date looked through over 4000 items in our photographic archive, which made for very interesting conversation!!

 

But that’s not all….

Yesterday staff at CHAC were very fortunate to meet with staff, volunteers and trustees at Honiton AllHallows Museum following on from an earlier visit by a textiles expert from Warminster. We took down some samples of lace that we had found tucked away in our collection for identification and to get some advice from the experts about storage and conservation. We found out that most of our lace collection is from the Edwardian period and is mainly machine made, although we did find that we have a few examples of earlier French and English hand-made lace as well! So all in all it was a very worthwhile trip (and we also got the chance to have a little look around the museum – we highly recommend a visit! look out for the famous hippo!)

machined lace with a bell pattern, probably Edwardian

Late 1700’s to early 1800’s French Needle Lace known as Alencon