Blandford in the past.

Today we had a fantastic morning at the Blandford museum! We had many questions we wanted to ask about what life was like 100 years ago. We were also curious to find out how historians know. What do they use to find out about the past?
The first source we used was an amazing collection of old photographs.

 From these we could see what the transport was like; no cars but a variety of carts and carriages pulled by horses and a few big heavy bikes! We could also see the shops clearly. There were no supermarkets but lots of small shops; a butcher, grocer, bookshop, clothes shop, household goods, tobacco shop, shoes and boots and fancy goods!
We then looked around the museum and looked at artefacts, things that people had kept in their houses that tell us about life in the past. In the home part we saw a washing tub and mangle, an old cooking rangeand a butter maker. Clues that help us understand  that kitchen work was pretty hard!

We also saw a blacksmith with a selection of his tools and a cobbler making shoes by hand.

 In the toy section we saw a variety of toys children had enjoyed including a dolls house, dolls, soldiers, model animals and marbles.....Quite different from the computer games of today!
One of our favourite bits was the train model.

 This has been made by carefully studying old maps, photographs and drawings and shows just how the steam trains served Blandford 100 years ago.
We also visited the victorian garden and saw how fruit and vegetables were grown and tended using natural methods.

We learnt so much!
Thank you to everyone at the museum for keeping this wonderful resource going and making our history come alive for us.

Here are some slides from the Blandford Town Museum for you to enjoy.