HERITAGE OPEN DAYS EVENT REPORT

Heritage Open Days and Ryde Social Heritage Group’s 10th Anniversary Celebrations closed on September 9 and all involved have taken time to rest and reflect on the success of the event.

This was the group’s sixth year participating in the National Heritage Open Days scheme, it was by far its most successful event to date and a perfect way to celebrate its 10th Anniversary.

St Thomas Heritage Centre was the ideal location: in the centre of the town and providing a large exhibition space with room for entertainment for a seated audience. Sadly the building is rarely open to the public and one of the aims of Heritage Open Days is to make accessible buildings of historic or architectural significance that are normally closed and to give free access during the four days.

St Thomas Heritage Centre (previously St Thomas Church) was built on the site of the first chapel in the town. In 1719 Thomas Player, the lord of the Manor of Ryde had a chapel of ease built so the residents could worship locally without having to travel seven miles to the Parish Church at Newchurch, In 1827 George Player had the small chapel replaced by the current building, a larger church. St Thomas is therefore of historical and sentimental importance to the people of Ryde.

At the first planning meeting ideas were proposed, thrown out, brilliant suggestions accepted but others groaned at and the group questioned whether it would be able to follow through this very ambitious concept. Months of planning and research preceded the event which also aimed to showcase the group’s achievements over the past decade. In the Winter months, the date seemed far away, but September 6 was upon us very soon! The exhibition included displays on: The history of the Ryde Social Heritage Group; Timelines showing items of local, national and international events for the past 10 years and for every 10th year from 1912 to 2012; The Great War and World War II; The History of Ryde Pier; Ryde Schools; Ryde Heritage Audio Trail; Ryde Cemetery Heritage Trail; Memories of Ryde collected by the group from local people over the past 10 years; Local shops and business; Royals in Ryde; St Thomas Church; The Lords of the Manor of Ryde and ‘Helping People across the World’ showing some of the assistance the group has given to people from across the world researching their ancestors from Ryde. Shelagh offered to display her Great Aunt’s trousseau which took pride of place in the Player Family pew!

As some of the group’s members also have an interest in dolls houses it was decided to have a ‘Ryde in Miniature’ exhibition depicting some of the businesses and buildings from Ryde’s past. This part of the exhibition surpassed everyone’s expectations and consisted of representations of 32 business and buildings ranging from one of the oldest buildings, a fisherman’s cottage, right up to the present day Christmas Display at Busy Bee.

The group gained access to St Thomas on the Saturday before Heritage Open Days and spent a whole day cleaning the premises. The next four days were spent transporting display boards, equipment, extra tables, all the research folders and books, etc., setting up all the displays and decorating the building with miles of bunting. It took a lot of hard physical work but everything was ready for the opening and there followed four days of wonderful summery weather.

On Thursday 6 September people were waiting outside for the opening at 11am and there was a steady stream of visitors over the four days. More than 600 visitors came to the event; many made return visits bringing friends and family members to have a look at the displays and to talk to the team of volunteers.

Just after the opening on Thursday the group’s special guest, Dr Nick Barratt, Editor in Chief of ‘Your Family History’ magazine arrived. As this day was also the first day of IW Bestival there had been some anxiety as to whether he would be delayed crossing the Solent. Fortunately Wightlink staff assisted and he boarded the ferry without having to wait in the long queue although he did cross on a ferry packed with young people off for a weekend of partying at Bestival. Dr Barratt, travels all over the British Isles, visiting Local History Groups collating information for articles, and Family History. Dr Barratt spent the first hour looking around the exhibition, meeting members of the group and being very complimentary about the displays and the amount of work and thought that had gone into the exhibition. He exclaimed “I am never at a loss for words, but this is amazing!” Shelagh and Janette then took him to the Heritage Centre in Ryde Cemetery to show him the group’s base; where the work started and continues today. There he was introduced to the wonderful David Earle and was told how the group has devised lesson plans and assists when local schools visit the cemetery. The lesson plans mean that school children can visit the cemetery for a day and have all normal their lessons there. Shelagh and Ann took Dr Barratt for lunch at Olivo’s in Union Street and they chatted about the group and helping people with their family history research. Dr Barratt, talked about his own work and how important it was to record Family Histories and to maintain Record Offices, where one could do research.

At 2pm Janette introduced Dr Barratt to the waiting audience at St Thomas and he spoke for over an hour about his background in studying history, obtaining his Phd, his work for various television programmes including ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and the importance of the sort of work being done today by Ryde Social Heritage Group. The talk was very well received and Nick stayed on to answer questions from the audience. Sadly at the end of the day he had to leave to catch a ferry back to the mainland and to travel home. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed his visit.

On Friday the group was kept busy with over 100 visitors during the day, lots of people shared their memories, helped name some of the people in old photographs and generally enjoying the exhibition. That evening the group had a private party for invited guests to celebrate its birthday. Guests were greeted with a glass of wine and were able to have a look at the exhibition before Janette gave a short talk about the aims and work of the group and it’s achievements in the past decade. Richard Smout, Island Heritage Manager, gave an entertaining talk on Ryde Characters from the past. Following this Janette introduced and thanked the team of people who work so hard to make the group the success it is. Then the Birthday Cake was brought out with its 10 candles burning. Janette invited Sally-Ann Garrett, who was one of the founder members of the group, to join her to blow out the candles and cut the cake which had been especially make for the celebrations by Barbara Hunt. The cake was cut and shared with all the visitors and teas and coffees were served. It was a fantastic evening and everyone enjoyed themselves. Saturday brought even more people to visit the exhibition and the Ryde in Miniature display became the talk of the town, everyone was fascinated by and commented on the attention to detail in each part of the miniature display. Each model had accompanying text about the history of the building or business. Children loved the display, whilst many adults happily reminisced about shops and buildings in the past.

At 2pm was the first showing of ‘Meet the Residents’ a dramatic portrayal of some of the people from Ryde’s past by members of RSHG. As it was such a lovely day visitors were led outside to Meet the Residents under the shade of the trees in the garden of rest. Kate the narrator introduced them to the Rev More, Curate of St Thomas; the beautiful young Comtessa Metaxa Anxolato; Countess Claire and her companion Miss Elliot; the gracious Lady Lees; eccentric Harry ‘Yankee’ Withington and his nagging wife and finally the ‘saintly’ Miss Brigstocke. It was a fabulous performance enjoyed by all. On Saturday evening there was a free event open to the public. The wonderful Shore Women Poetry group gave readings of original poems about benches both in and around the town and further afield. This was followed by a presentation from a Ryde group, the Dollymopps, which included their research into the history of William Henry Long. Long wrote A Dictionary of the Isle of Wight Dialect in 1886 and included Songs Sung by the Peasantry. The presentation was illustrated by songs from the Long Collection. The Dollymopps are Virgil and Dorana Phillpott and Dr Justin Smith. They sing in harmony from the folk tradition of Southern England. The poetry, history and singing were a great combination much appreciated by the audience.

Sunday was the last day of Heritage Open Days and of the group’s 10th anniversary celebrations. The day started out fine and sunny and many visitors came to see the exhibition. At 12:30 the group gave another ‘Meet the Residents’ performance in the garden of rest which amused and entertained the visitors.

Sadly there was one embarrassing faux pas to the whole proceedings of the four days when Janette mistakenly started her talk on Union Street at 2pm on Sunday rather than the advertised time of 2:30pm. She only realised the mistake about half way through the talk which she completed. After apologising and taking a short break she repeated the whole talk for a second time for benefit of those who had arrived at the correct time and had only caught the end of the first talk.

After this talk the draw was held for the Raffle which included many prizes donated by local businesses.

Then, all too soon, it was 4pm and time to close Heritage Open Days for another year.

Ryde Social Heritage Group would like to thank:
the Heritage Open Days team for their support;
the volunteers who gave their time in the preparation, setting up and manning the event;
the visitors who came and shared their stories;
the local businesses who donated many of the raffle prizes;
IW Council for use of the fantastic historic building and for the loan of display boards;
Bereavement Services for the loan of equipment;
The Binstead Methodist ladies, Audrey, Peggy, Jean and Rose, for helping with the refreshments;
Barbara & Colin for the wonderful cake and card;
Richard Smout for his ongoing support of the group and for the talk on Friday evening;
Dr Nick Barratt for travelling to the Island to be with us;
Shore Women and the Dollymopps for a great evening’s entertainment.

Follow these links for more information:
Heritage Open Days
Dr Nick Barratt
Shore Women
The Dollymopps