Woburn Abbey

The bus arrived at Woburn Abbey Thursday morning and we saw many deer out the windows because there is a deer park. The grounds around the house are massive - I found out that the house is on 3 and a half thousand acres of land.

We met the Curator Matthew Hirst, and Victoria who also works there as part of the collection management team.

They gave us a presentation on 'Exhibitions in an English Country House,' which included a history of the house. Woburn Abbey was originally a monastic foundation (a monastery) built in 1145. In Henry VIII's will he bestowed the Abbey to the Russell Family, Sir John Russell the Duke of Bedford.

Currently it is a historic house but it is also the residence of the current Duke and Duchess of Bedford, Andrew and Louise Russell.

The Curator went through the various modes of exhibitions they have to display their collection and tell the story of Woburn Abbey:

- Historical room sets 

- Museological displays

- Temporary exhibitions in a dedicated space

- Trail led exhibitions throughout the Abbey/Garden

- Graphic led exhibitions

- Education led interpretation

Overall their challenge is to target a wider market and attract younger visitors and more international visitors. 

We split into groups of four and each group got given two exhibitions to compare and critique, in the meantime suggesting improvements that could be made.

My group was given the historical room sets in the House, and the Young Curators exhibition.

The Young Curators exhibition was cool because they approached a school, and got the kids to help curate an exhibition by each picking an old fashioned object and writing about it. Some of the comments were very entertaining. For example, one of the items on display was a cat collar and as part of the description for the object, the kid wrote 'I once had a cat who didn't have a collar and he ran away.'

Also one of the objects was an inkwell and quill pen and the kid wrote 'We no longer need inkwells as our pens contain a lot of ink. When the ink runs out we throw the pen away and buy a new one.'

It was really interesting to see it from a kids' perspective - how kids view the process of cataloging and curating.

My group also looked at the historical rooms in the house. One of the Duchesses of Bedford, Mary Russell, was known as The Flying Duchess, because when she reached the age of 60 she took up aviation and flying planes. One of the rooms in the house had been recreated to look like her room. Her story is abit like Amelia Earheart's - in 1937 her plane crashed and her body has never been found.

Also Queen Victoria and Albert stayed in the house for 3 nights in 1841 so there was their bedroom, and also a nightdress that she wore.

Because it is a current private residence, there were also modern family photos and rooms we weren't able to go into.

We had lunch and looked in the gift shop, then at 3:00 each group presented their thoughts to Matthew and Victoria.

Our accommodation for the night was The Longs Inn (below) which was quite nice, and then a bus came the next morning to take us to London.