Current exhibitions
175 Years of Brent Reservoir
20 December 2009- 14 February 2010
Church Farmhouse Museum, Hendon, is celebrating the 175th anniversary of Brent Reservoir- ‘the Welsh Harp’- with a new exhibition on the fascinating history of this major resource, which spans the London boroughs of Barnet and Brent. The two borough’s Welsh Harp Joint Consultative Committee has sponsored the exhibition.
Brent Reservoir was built to replenish the water lost by the many locks on the Regent’s and Grand Union Canals. It opened in 1835, and was from the start much used for swimming and fishing, but it really took off as a recreation spot in the 1860s, thanks to William Perkins Warner, landlord of the now-demolished Welsh Harp pub (from which the reservoir takes its popular name) who added skating, shooting, a menagerie and even horse racing to the area’s attractions. The Welsh Harp had its own music hall, and its own music hall song- ‘The Jolliest Place That’s Out’- and it was until the rise of the seaside holiday in the 1890s a very popular resort for day-tripping Londoners.
The Welsh Harp has long-standing connexion with navigation: the modern ship’s propeller was created there in 1836; speed- boats and small flying-boats were common sights there in the 1920s and 1930s; and a number of boating groups use the reservoir today.
The Welsh Harp has some unusual associations, too. Torpedoes and tanks were tested there, and it was the scene of the Hendon Nudist Riots in the hot Summer of 1930, which involved fist-fights between some 200 Hendon residents and nude sun-bathers.
Brent reservoir, now managed by the Welsh Harp Conservation Group, has a diverse wildlife- from voles to slow-worms, and in 1975 was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, because of its wealth of over-wintering waterfowl; teal, grebes, shovellers, coot and Canada geese are frequent visitors to the Welsh Harp- for nearly 200 years a wonderful breathing-space for London.
Christmas Past… and Present
6 December 2009- 6 January 2010
Every December, Church Farmhouse Museum’s 1850s dining room is decorated for a Victorian Christmas. The display demonstrates that so much of what we now think of as making up the ‘ traditional British Christmas’- the Christmas Tree, Christmas cards, crackers and tinsel decorations, the turkey, familiar carols- even the exchange of presents on 25 December- was either invented by the Victorians or introduced by them to this country from abroad.
This year, too, we have a display of Christmas cards made especially for the Museum by the calligraphers of the North London Lettering Association.
In addition, the Museum’s very popular Teddy Bear Trail has been replaced for the holidays by a special Christmas Trail through the Museum’s Victorian kitchen and laundry room.
Oliver Cromwell and the readmission of the Jews to England in 1656
10 October 2009 - 14 February 2010
The Jews were expelled from England in 1290, but in 1656 Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate government took and important step towards their readmission to this country. Cromwell was petitioned by Menasseh ben Israel, a rabbi based in Amsterdam, which had a thriving Jewish community, to live and worship freely in England again. Three councils were held, and although they came to no formal decisions, in 1656 Jews were allowed to worship privately, and the first synagogue and Jewish burial ground were allowed to be founded in London without any legal hindrance.
Cromwell may have had mixed motives for his actions: the Jewish community had made a major contribution to the economic success of the Dutch, which impressed him, and he also believed that that God’s Kingdom on earth could not be established until the conversion of the Jews to Christianity, but Cromwell also counted the Jews amongst the ‘Godly’ people, and there is no question that, after 1656, Jewish people were able to live in this country with a religious tolerance which would have been unimaginable in the preceding three centuries. (This exhibition, which was prepared by the Cromwell Museum at Huntingdon, has never been shown in London before.)
THE MOVING TOYSHOP
20th Century toys and games
Church Farmhouse Museum’s continuing exhibition of playthings from the past, with hundreds of toys to see- and lots for the very young to play with- has new displays for Summer 2009, and now includes construction toys from the past and the present for older children to try. There is also a Teddy Bear Trail for younger children to follow through the Museum’s Victorian rooms.
Museum shop
The shop sells a wide range of inexpensive toys and gifts.
Opening times and getting there
Email this pageLast modified by: Robin Yeates on 23/12/2009