Mayor opens new exhibition exploring Westbury’s past

Town Mayor Jane Russ took a trip back in time when she opened the latest exhibition at the Westbury Museum.  

The new exhibition focuses on Westbury 150 years ago and is filled with artefacts, information and pictures. It features everything from what people earned, their occupations, town shops and local personalities.  

The displays feature items from the railway, the cloth mills and the inns, as well as a nineteenth-century silk day dress and a handmade Victorian nightgown. Visitors can also see the carefully weighed meagre portion of bread and cheese that would have been allocated as lunch for an adult man in the town’s workhouse.  

Other parts of the exhibition include a school corner where visitors can sit at a Victorian desk and try copywriting in italic style. There is also information about the many schools that were in the town and the sorts of lessons children would have been taught.  

While there are no photographs from the 1870s, the exhibition features some of the museum’s oldest photographs, giving visitors a chance to see how their town has changed.  

Opening the exhibition, the mayor said, “During my year as mayor I shall be concentrating on community and a town museum is central to how a community sees itself. The sterling work done by volunteers of the heritage society to keep the museum at the heart of the community is admirable”.  

The exhibition in the museum on the first floor of the town library will run until November. Entrance is free and everyone is welcome.  

The museum, which had been closed due to water damage in the roof, has been repaired and repainted.  

“It’s great to be up and running again and to be hosting such an interesting exhibition,” said heritage society secretary Brenda Pyne. “We really hope people will come along and enjoy it.”