Or, as it is much more usually named, the Long Shop Museum at Leiston. Finally found our way there, another of those ‘we’ve lived in the area 25 years and still haven’t been to one of the many local attractions’ moments. Of course, we’ve been to Leiston before and to the remarkably well preserved Abbey ruins, but it’s taken the Arts Pass to shake off the inertia and visit the museum.
My inkling (before going I hasten to add) was that the museum was a kind of homage to local but aged machinery, which is only a very tenuous link to its real mission and purpose. It is of course based on the site of the original 19th century works of Richard Garrett and sons and therefore encompasses two hundred years of industrial history. The family firm was in fact world famous manufacturers of agricultural machinery and steam engines and, for a period, was led by an innovative, entrepreneurial and relatively enlightened family. The museum itself is a fascinating mix of the products it manufactured, the buildings in which they were built and the stories of the owners and people who worked there. Of particular value is that the Long Shop itself, an early prototype of assembly line production (see photo), has been maintained / restored, enabling what the local employees named the work ‘cathedral’ to be enjoyed by modern audiences.
The Long Shop was built in 1852 and was an early attempt at a flow line assembly hall. It’s a highlight of the tour round, as you can access the higher tier gallery as well as the ground floor and can get a sense of how any components produced in the gallery were transferred by pulley and crane to the floor below. The works finally closed for good in 1980 and although much of the Town Works site was replaced by new housing, some buildings remained and formed the basis of the current museum. All this and of course the Garrett family also beget the first female to qualify as a physician and surgeon. She was also the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor in Britain. You don’t know? Well, that’s your starter for ten 🙂
It’s not a particularly large museum, but it’s very cleverly laid out, with plenty of interactive stuff for children to engage in; overall, it’s a very innovative mix of the big, professional macro stuff, along with the personal histories of those who worked there and make it real to the amateur numpties like me! I hope we just caught it on a bad day, as we appeared to be the only visitors in the place throughout our time there (Saturday) and you can’t help but fear for the long term future of such endeavours when faced with this paucity of response. All involved deserve so much more!!