Part of the touring exhibition – Tradition and Innovation: The Story of Market Towns.
From the press release: The exhibition will be touring to museums in Sheringham, Diss, Swaffham and Wymondham from November 2013 to July 2015, before making its way to museums across the East of England. The exhibition tells the story of the development of market towns and Britons’ changing shopping habits from the medieval period to the 21st century. It discusses the issues facing market towns, such as the rise of out-of-town shopping, as well as the ability of market towns to survive and thrive in the face of adversity.
Fairland Street 1900 and 2014.
Visitors to the exhibition can enjoy seeing stunning archive photographs and listening to the voices of shopkeepers past and present. Visitors will also have the opportunity to handle real artefacts that would have been found in markets and shops from the Victorian era to the present-day. Each of the first four museums to host the exhibition will also be running a special family day, where local families will get the opportunity to create their own cardboard shops.
The exhibition features specially commissioned ‘ghost’ photographs by Nick Stone (thas me, I didn’t write this), a Norwich-based photographer. Stone (that’s me that is again) used computer software to merge archive images of shops with his own present-day pictures to demonstrate changes that have taken place in the high street over the last century.
The exhibition has been created by Museums Norfolk, and was funded by SHARE Museums East, the organisation that delivers museum development across the East of England.
Tradition and Innovation: The Story of Market Towns will be displayed Sheringham Museum (November 2013 – March 2014), Diss Museum (March – September 2014), Swaffham Museum (September 2014 – February 2015) and Wymondham Museum (February – July 2015).
Once the Dog and Duck, now The Olde Beams, a healthfood shop (the chap in the cart may possibly be Dusty Goodings)
he got a dickey pullen uh cart hent he.
Walter Lane outside his shop up at Town Green in Wymondham.
Now Middletons so I’m led to believe.
A nice bit of Wymondham history, the war memorial on the corner was fenced in once, always makes me wonder where the metal went, wonder if it was reclaimed in WW2?
All composite images © Nick Stone 2014, original images copyright respective owners (Wymondham Museum) Not to be reused without explicit permission.
With thanks to Laura Crossley, Museums Norfolk, and Share Museums East.