We may look small from the outside, but we have Tardis magiCk! There are 8 separate rooms stuffed full of history! Discover more and more in every nook of this labyrinth-esque building to uncover your intrigue.

Costume

Costume

Boxing day wedding dress 1918 that Evelena Stanbury wore during her marriage to James Ley in the village of West Down, a couple of miles from Ilfracombe. There is an embroidered motif of flowers repeated eight times on the shoulders, wrists and at the end of each lapel. The dress is made of a cream crepe de chine with a lace collar. Four tassels with the embroidered insignia hang at each side of the body both front and back. Long sleeves of gathered fabric at the forearm and fitted cuffs. It is about knee length and the material is elegant, modest and summery, despite being a boxing day wedding dress.

This dress features in our wedding dress exhibition – Get me to the Church on Time! ‘Terrifies me… makes me party… put’s my trust in God and man.’ David Bowie

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North Africa

This is a set of three daggers encased within a sheath made of the head and skin of a juvenile Nile crocodile.

This artefact produces a few questions with a great variety of subject matter:
What did wildlife on the Nile look like in the late 19th century? What did this crocodile eat? How did it hunt?
How was this artefact made? Did many people of varying professions contribute to hunting, killing, sewing, blacksmithing and inscribing to make the finished artefact? How many have been produced? Is this a weapon? For ceremonial use? a tourist’s trinket? What is the significance of the number 3 and the crocodile to its maker? How did it end up in Ilfracombe? What is the journey of this object?

From many other examples on the internet and from our catalogue card, we assume this is of Sudanese origin, but little is known about this set of daggers and sheath. We can say what we know, and mostly speculate.

There are three daggers, two curved on either side and a straight dagger in the middle. There is a pattern on the blades. Many others of this type are believed to have been made in the Madhist period of Sudanese history in the late 19th century. Some others have inscriptions in Arabic on the blades, ours do not. Possibly it is a weapon, maybe used in the wars with Egyptian and British forces over territory. This could be how this artefact made its way to England – if a British soldier stole the weapon and brought it home. Maybe it is a copy of a much more significant object and was sold to tourists and that is how it came to Devon. If it was used for ritual or was an ornament, or a prize that could explain the blunt ends of the curved daggers, though this could also evidence excessive use.

Natural History

This is the common mapwing or Cyrestis Maenalis. It lies within our butterfly drawers in which we hold over 1000 different sub species  of butterfly and moth.

Our founder, Mervyn Palmer was fascinated by butterflies and collected many. In his book, ‘Through Unknown Nicaragua’ he takes us with him on an expedition:

‘Along the shady banks of forest streams wherever the sun can break through the dense mantle of trees, there on the flowers are to be seen those flying jewels Heliconias. To my mind, nothing can compare in exquisite beauty with the sight of a large black Papilio, velvety of wing with a streak of golden yellow or emerald green and with spots blazing scarlet or a fold of snowy whiteness, sipping with half-opened wings the nectar from a nodding blossom.’

Local history

The National Provincial Bank was a retail bank which operated in England and Wales. It was created in 1833 as National Provincial Bank of England, and expanded largely by taking over a number of other banks. This is an Ilfracombe Bank note, issued from this bank.

The National Provincial Bank merged with Westminster bank to form NatWest on the first day of 1970.

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Maritime

This is a model of the HMS Bounty which embarked on a journey to establish a breadfruit crop in the Caribbean in 1787. The initiative aimed to cut costs and make profits by feeding captive slaves breadfruit which had a higher yield and took up less space than the current diet that was administered. During the journey from the Tahiti to the Caribbean, where sailors were stuffed in close with the cultivated breadfruit and the breadfruit plant was allocated their water rations, tensions got high and a mutiny began. Fletcher Christian sent Captain Bligh off the Bounty into a small boat which he surprisingly managed to sail back to the UK. Christian then sailed on to ‘undiscovered’ territory and named it ‘Pitcairn Island’. The Pitcairn Islands are still inhabited by descendants of these settlers today. One of them was Mauatua, a Tahitian woman who travelled over with the mutineers, who according to a particular descendant was instrumental in bringing about women’s right to vote on the island as early as 1838!

This model forms part of our collection of model boats. We also have the HMS Pickle, the Titanic and the Snowflake.

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