05/03/2026
The volunteer team at the Waltham Museum of Rural Life and RAF Grimsby Exhibition are looking forward to welcoming visitors again.
We reopen on Saturday 28th March and will then be open until the end of September on Saturdays, Sundays, Bank Holiday Mondays,. and on some days during school holidays. Entry, as always, is free, with donations gratefully accepted.
Over what seems like a long, and cold, winter (the Museum is unheated), volunteers have been undertaking cleaning and maintenance, and have been updating some of the displays.
When sorting out some of our books and documents, we discovered a Souvenir Brochure for The Royal Air Force Open Day, Sunday 10th June 2001, organised by the Museum. The brochure includes a history of the Museum from its inception in 1988 to 2001, written by Museum Volunteer Curator Michael Field. Our volunteer experience today is remarkably similar to our predecessors. This short history is repeated here.
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A short history of the Rural Life Museum
During the second world war the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) based at the nearby heavy bomber airfield (RAF Grimsby) were billeted in a number of huts built on the windmill site. The only remaining Nissen hut, in which the Waltham Museum of Rural Life and RAF Grimsby Exhibition is now housed, was used as their canteen and recreation hut.
After the war this building was used for a number of purpose, one being a motor vehicle repair shop and another as a general store, until it was eventually taken over by the newly created Waltham Windmill Trust and used to store a number of items of old farm equipment such as ploughs, seed drills and several old tractors.
Although having been officially opened as a museum in July 1988 by the Commanding Officer of RAF Binbrook it was rarely opened to the public, except when someone expressed an interest and were given a key and allowed to look around by themselves. This was due to a shortage of Trust volunteers able to open it on a regular basis. And so, the museum slumbered on for a number of years, there being nobody available with the time and enthusiasm to take on the task of bringing the building to life, and it was in this condition that it was discovered by the present curator [Michael Field, writing this in 2001].
In the autumn of 1990, a group of volunteers met together and decided that a rural life museum should be created to show how the wheat which was ground in the windmill was produced, from the time the seed was planted through to harvest and finally to the mill.
[2001] It is now twelve years since the museum first opened its doors to visitors and in that time it has changed out of all recognition. What is now the parlour was being used as a tea room by a team of work experience volunteers who were building the men’s toilets, the kitchen display area was a wood store, and where the costume display is now was an old thrashing drum – that was all the space that was available in the first few years of the museum’s existence.
But from the outset it was evident that more space would soon be needed if the items were to be displayed to their best advantage, so when the work experience team had left their tea room was convened into what is now the parlour. The wood store was then cleared to create the kitchen display – and that was just on the inside.
If one had visited the museum and site in its early years, you would have found no tarmac parking area, no paved walk up to the museum, and no pottery workshop at the end as that was being used as a depository for several old mill sails. The front of the museum displayed the ploughs, seed drills and other large horse-drawn farm equipment which had once been inside, but which had been cleared to make space for the new displays.
Inevitably space soon began to run out inside the museum, so in 1993 a lean-to cover was erected along the front to protect the outside displays and to allow further items to be shown, and in 1994 the frontage was paved as you see it today.
In 1995 the decision was made to enlarge the museum by adding two Portacabins, the space thus gained enabling a number of completely new displays to be created. [N.B. The Portacabins were later severely damaged by severe weather and had to be disposed of.] But even then space was at a premium, so over the winter of 1998 the lean-to at the front was boxed-in to create a series of displays, thus whetting the appetite of visitor before they entered the museum.
In 1999 the thrashing drum, which had been on loan to the museum, was returned to its owner and the space that became free was used to create a small display of RAF wartime memorabilia dedicated to the memory of the heavy bomber crews who flew from the local airfields.
When the museum closed for the winter in 1999 it had been in existence for ten years, so the decision was taken to completely revamp the interior by moving various displays and so create fresh interest for visitors when the museum reopened at Easter 2000. The major changes that were made entailed moving the craft and agricultural displays to the middle of the museum, moving the RAF display into the space thus vacated and using that space to create a totally new costume display, whilst at the same time creating an office display where the costumes used to be and that is how visitors will see it today [in 2001].
The various displays one sees have been created to fit in with what visitors have said they would like to see, for as we like to say it is your museum, created for your enjoyment.
As you wander round you will notice that the displays are of no specific period, we haven’t created an Edwardian gentleman’s study or a Victorian parlour, artefacts from various periods being displayed together for the mutual enjoyment, interest, and (hopefully) education of all ages, from the youngsters to the more mature.
Twelve years is a long time for a small museum of this type to have been running, staffed as it is by a small group of volunteers, none of whom are getting any younger, so we are always interested if anyone expresses an interest in joining the team.
From its inception the museum has worked on the following principles. Firstly, that it is free, although visitors can if they wish give a donation towards the cost of the upkeep. Secondly, almost all the items on display have been donated. And thirdly, with space at a premium as you will see, we reserve the right to choose what we do, or do not, accept. For example, bicycles, sewing machines and typewriters tend to take up rather a lot of space.
The creation of the museum has entailed a considerable amount of hard work, sweat and tears over the years, and as you walk round on a hot summer’s day give a thought to one bitterly cold winter’s day a few years ago when, as we worked, the block on the tractor froze and split besides us.
Author: Michael Field, Museum Volunteer Curator, June 2001
