Day 19: Cheltenham

Today Pene and Mark took me to The Wilson, the Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum named for Edward Wilson, the Cheltenham-born explorer who died on Scott's Antarctic Expedition. Christopher joined us there.

The Wilson has a collection of artefacts, documents and paintings from the expedition. Downloadable and printable photos of 51 or these are available in the Museum's online-collection.

The Wilson also has a substantial Arts and Crafts collection including a collection of furniture. 469 items, mostly with photographs are catalogued online.  There is also an archeological, a fine art and a local history collection.

Among my favourites were a May Morris embroidery,

this extraordinary bust,

a stained-glass roundel entitled "Taffy was a Welshman" by Paul Woodroffe



 this piece of paving








and a rather worse-for-wear
wear weaving comb.

I was intrigued by these objects that looked like stone donuts and turned out to be weights for weaving.













This re-creation of a muffin man has had the nursery rhyme running through my head all day.

Oh do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man?
Oh do you know the muffin man who lives in Drury Lane?

I had never imagined him with a top hat!









Edward Wilson had been married three weeks when he left on the expedition to the Antarctic from which he did not return













Outside it was pretty cold and overcast but there were a few daffodils and jonquils to be seen.







We then went to the Gustav Holst Birthplace Museum at 4 Clarence St. Holst was born here in 1872 and lived here until he was 8. The two ground-floor rooms contain many of his possessions, including his piano and a very lovely painted storage box.

















I liked these plates commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Planets Suite.









Upstairs were a couple of rooms furnished in the style of the time. Downstairs was a kitchen where you could take cooking classes - or just sample the bake of the day - seed cake.





In the foyer of the Museum, Christopher pointed out that the plastered ceiling was the kind of work our grandfather used to do. That seemed a fitting time to move to a cafe for a very late (3.30pm) lunch.













Christopher went home from here. Andrew and a mate who had been shopping in the city found us to hitch a ride home. We repaired to Daniel and Jenny's place for a cup of tea before returning to find Christine and Eddie back from visiting their other son in London.


I really enjoyed The Wilson and the company was great.