Hertford Museum Blog

It’s another busy week at Hertford Museum as we prepare for the end of Horsnell’s Hertford and the start of our new exhibition Keepsakes, Key rings and Kiss Me Quick which opens on the 1st of June.

This week on the blog we thought we’d talk about some of the objects that have been loaned to Hertford Museum and some that we’ve loaned to others!

However big a museum’s collection is there are always times when we need to talk to other museums, groups or individuals to get that perfect object for an exhibition.

Spencer Gore painting on loan from Reading Museum

For our exhibition on Hertingfordbury we borrowed a Palaeolithic hand axe from the British Museum, a painting by Spencer Gore from Reading Museum and lots of photographs and objects from residents of Hertingfordbury and the Greens past and present.

Our next exhibition is all made up of objects loaned by members of the public- we’ve got royal souvenir mugs, key rings from far flung places, souvenirs of travels far and near, a Butlins biscuit tin and even Take That pants!

But we don’t just borrow things from other people, sometimes we loan out our objects too.

This year Hudsons Dental Care are celebrating their 80th anniversary and to celebrate it there will be a special exhibition at the British Dental Association Museum in London. Hudsons current home is just across the road from Hertford Museum in Bull Plain and over the years we’ve collected some objects from them (including the dentist’s chair in our first floor gallery!) so tomorrow we’re meeting a member of the staff from the BDA to arrange a loan of some pieces for their display.

Dentists chair from Hudsons Dental Care on display in our Hertford Galleries