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Home / Blog / Update on our projects from the Museum Director, Jenny Cousins

Update on our projects from the Museum Director, Jenny Cousins

2025 started with a new team of builders arriving on site to take down Edgar’s Farmhouse on 2 January.

This 14th-century hall was moved to the museum in the 1970s. For many years there has been a recognition that it was in the wrong place (abutting a large corrugated metal store) and needed a better quality presentation. The historian Norman Scarfe expressively summarised the issues with Edgar’s in the 1980s: ‘it was put cheek-by-jowl with the raw edge of Stowmarket on the museum’s own suburban boundary. Worse even than its embarrassing new perch, it was given an indefensible cement-based cladding which it has worn, like a penitential sheet, ever since.’

In early 2024, we commissioned research and studies from specialists to help inform how we should present the building. More about the project and the background to the farmhouse is in the Projects section of our website. We will publish the research when it is completed.

Moving Edgar’s also enables us to carry out a large-scale refurbishment of the museum’s Collections Store, which is due to start in February. This is the next phase of the MEND project which has already constructed new toilets at the museum’s entrance and carried out substantial repairs to the roof and walls of the Grade II listed Victorian Stables. Emptying the Collections Store to enable the work to take place was a daunting task which has been accomplished by our staff and volunteers with great courage and fortitude, a day at a time!

Anyone who has visited recently will have seen the work that we have carried out to the Fishing Lodge island, cutting back brambles to reveal the 18th-century summerhouse. This attractive little building will soon be open to the public for the first time. We want visitors to be able to experience something akin to what the former owners of Abbot’s Hall would have done: sit and read a book on the island, watch the kingfisher or take an afternoon tea and let some time go by.

Edgars Farmhouse deconstruction @ Traditional Oak Carpentry

Edgars Farmhouse deconstruction @ Traditional Oak Carpentry

Edgars Farmhouse deconstruction @ Traditional Oak Carpentry

Edgars Farmhouse deconstruction @ Traditional Oak Carpentry

Images taken by Traditional Oak Carpentry.

Architects impression of proposed Edgars Farmhouse reconstruction

Low Tree Line Impact Visual

Architects impression of proposed Edgars Farmhouse reconstruction

 

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