Our Current
Displays
The exhibits are displayed in four areas of the old school premises. Find out more about them below.
Our Display Areas
The Main Hall
This was the principal classroom of the old school and would have accommodated up to three separate classes at the same time. Displayed in this area are items of domestic and trade social history organised into themed sections, e.g. cooking, laundry, tools, general household items and personal effects. The main hall will be one of the first areas you visit when you arrive at The Allerford Museum in West Somerset and forms a part of all school visits to the museum.
The School Room
This was the infant classroom of the old school and still contains the original long desks and benches from the early 1800s. There are displays of toys from the 19th and early 20th Century and samplers made by pupils from the school along with some of their exercise books. Victorian clothes are available on racks for visiting children to dress up and slates and slate pencils for them to write and draw on. A few old text books may bring back some memories.
THE ARCHIVE ROOM
This room contains the current special exhibition, which for the year 2021, is based on World Wars I & II. The theme is the armed services, civilian, voluntary and youth organisations. There is a second small exhibition on lost landmarks of Minehead in bygone days. The room also houses the West Somerset Photographic Archive in around 60 albums covering events, people and places from the 1880s up to the 1960s, together with local newspaper cuttings and advertisements for the period. Further items of general interest are on view and also a wall screen scrolling historic pictures of rural life and places in West Somerset.
Outside Displays
In the area beside and behind the old school are several outbuildings in which the tools and artefacts of various rural trades and occupations are displayed. A shoemaker’s shop is next to the dairy and the blacksmith, forestry, cider making, thatching and carpentry trades etc. are represented further on. Agriculture has provided many specialised hand tools as well as the horse ploughs, seed drills and general farming equipment on show. Old gardening tools and lawn mowers also have their place.