Church Farmhouse Museum Main Exhibitions |
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50 Years of the Friends of Chaville (22 February- 18 April 2010) The Friends of Chaville marked their 50th anniversary in with an official visit by the Mayor of Barnet and other councillors to Chaville in November 2009, where they celebrated the Barnet- Chaville town twinning, and also participated in the town’s Armistice Day commemorations. Church Farmhouse Museum has mounted a small free exhibition showing the work of the Friends in linking two different cultures to mutual benefit. Chaville, a town some six miles from Paris and close to Sevres and Versailles, was originally twinned with Friern Barnet Urban District Council in 1959. When that was subsumed into London Borough of Barnet in 1965, Chaville became one of eight towns abroad twinned with Barnet. The Chaville-Barnet link was greatly enhanced in the 1970s and 80s by the efforts of the late Cllr Vic Usher, Chairman of the Friends of Chaville for twenty years, who is honoured by having a square in Chaville named after him. (It has just been announced that a street in Chaville will be named ‘rue Barnet’ in 2011.) The Friends of Chaville exists to foster the close relationship between Barnet and Chaville, not only through formal civic occasions, but also through educational exchanges for young people: sporting competitions; cultural events; and visits by and from individual residents. I75 Years of Brent Reservoir (20 December 09- 14 February 10)
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. 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 Church Farm’s continuing exhibition of 20th Century toys and games is based on the extensive private collections of Friends of the Museum Irene & Mark Cornelius and Brenda Faris. It will feature new displays of teddy bears, dolls and dolls’ houses this Summer, and there is now a Teddy Bear Trail for children to follow through the Museum’s Victorian kitchen, laundry room and dining room. As well as toys and games for the very young to play with, the exhibition now gives an opportunity for older children to make their own models out of Lego or Lott’s Bricks.(Lott’s Bricks were made nearby in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and were one of the most popular construction toys of the 1930s.)
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