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Day off for Jon and we decided to explore locally today. Even though it’s on our doorstep, Jon had never been to Newbury Museum … and I had only visited the once!
It’s a very small museum and the renovation of the museum got a lot of criticism with incorporating a modern touch into one of the oldest buildings in Newbury.
The first part of the museum takes an overview of everything West Berkshire has to offer. It then focuses on the Civil War Battles of Newbury. There is also a focus on the cloth industry that developed in Newbury thanks to Jack O’Newbury and other notable contributions local industry have made internationally – Plentys and the life boat and Vodafone. Bringing the exhibition up to modern day, one room featured the local COVID response to the pandemic.
The cloth hall at one end of the museum is the oldest part of the building. There was a poster at one end of the hall featuring a large panel called Knitted Newbury 2018 that was in storage – it looks fascinating covering various buildings and events that have taken place in Newbury over the years (even a little knitted R2-D2 as a nod to the filming of Star Wars that took place at the silos on Greenham Common).
Moving a little further around the room, you could just see the actual panel hidden behind a screen.
