Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery

15/05/2025

📣 We're hiring! Apply by 25 May

Retail Supervisor
permanent contract
37 hours per week
£25,584 to £27,269 per annum

Do you have experience gained from working in a retail environment with excellent sales and customer service skills, knowledge of ePOS and proven experience of visual merchandising?

We are recruiting a Retail Supervisor to support delivery of the retail offer across Norfolk Museums. Working from the newly refurbished retail space at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, you will have a minimum of two years’ experience working in a retail environment, strong aptitude for administrative processes, experience in stock management and exceptional customer service skills.

More details here:
https://ow.ly/gbl550VT8FC

Tell your friends!
Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Time and Tide Museum of Great Yarmouth Life Ancient House Museum Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell Strangers' Hall

14/05/2025

🎉 New Acquisition!

We’re very pleased to announce that Arts Council England & Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund and Norfolk Contemporary Art Society (NCAS) have purchased 'A sudden downpour' for the modern and contemporary art collection at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery.

This striking large-scale photographic work by artist Daniel & Clara is one of 12 works in a series titled The Lost Estate commissioned by Norwich Castle and generously supported by East Anglia Art Fund in 2023. The series was created by Daniel & Clara during a residency at High House in Norfolk. Six works were selected for exhibition at Norwich Castle in 2024-25 and remain on show as ‘Daniel & Clara: The Lost Estate’ which closes this Sunday 18 May. Don’t miss out!

The acquisition enhances an already strong collection of contemporary photographic work, which focuses particularly on artists working in, or with established links, to the region.

📷 Details from Daniel & Clara, A sudden downpour (The Lost Estate), 2023. Commissioned by Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery © courtesy the artist.

[ID: a man in a suit stands to hold a woman in a blue dress who appears to have lost consciousness. They are in a luscious English garden, there is a gentle light. In the next image we see a close up of an artichoke in bloom. Two further images show the artwork installed on a red wall at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery)

12/05/2025

Find out about the preparations underway to display the objects destined for The Gallery of Medieval Life: A British Museum Partnership, opening at Norwich Castle this summer. With thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fundritagefunduk for their support.

📷 The Walsingham Mould, NWHCM : 1880.51

🔗 New film on YouTube now:

https://youtu.be/NIJahXLp3Hg?feature=shared

British Museum

Hear from mount maker Colin John Lindley on the work he has undertaken to mount the fascinating objects destined for The Gallery of Medieval Life: A British ...

10/05/2025

If you have little ones under 5, today is the perfect day to explore, play and giggle together at Norwich Castle! Join us for Early Years Saturday with activities and ideas especially designed for our younger visitors. There will be lots to look at, listen to, hold and investigate!

🎟 All activities are included with museum admission.
🧒 Early Years Saturday runs monthly on the 2nd Saturday of the month.

More details and advance booking: https://bit.ly/3Ssfb5E

08/05/2025

📯 80 years ago this week David Johnson was serving as a dispatch rider with the 1st Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment as Allied Forces announced Victory in Europe.

As we mark the anniversary of this momentous occasion, we are delighted to announce that David has donated the 1st Battalion ‘D-Day to V.E. Day’ veterans flag to the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum.

Made of yellow silk, it depicts the regimental badge with Britannia in the centre around which is listed twenty key actions fought by the Battalion, including Venraij (Venray), where David was wounded by a bullet to his left knee. Veterans took this commemorative flag to France and Holland on significant anniversaries of the war.

David, who turned 100 in February, joined the Army in 1943 aged 18, and was placed in the 7th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment. He landed on the coast of Normandy on D Day + 16, fighting in the battle for Caen and moving forward through France under heavy German resistance. Reaching the small town of Grimbosq, 12 miles south-west of Caen, on 8th August 1944, the 7th Norfolks fought their final major action. The heavy casualties sustained led to it being disbanded and David was sent to the 1st Battalion. In September 1944 the 1st Battalion were the first British troops to enter Helmond, outside Eindhoven in the Netherlands, where they were given an uproarious and warm welcome.

https://ow.ly/2JYZ50VNJfP

Norfolk County Council

07/05/2025

Norfolk Museums Service is seeking to appoint a Collections Audit Assistant to join the Collections Management team. The position will support the delivery of capital investment in museum storage infrastructure and help to ensure its potential to improve collections care and security.

Fixed-term contract for 2 years
22.5 hours per week
Deadline 11 May 2025

More details here: https://careers.norfolk.gov.uk/ /sites/CX_1/job/7916

(p.s. this gorgeous display of amber and jet is on show now at Cromer Museum)

Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell Time and Tide Museum of Great Yarmouth Life Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse

06/05/2025

Two UEA students on placement have done a fab job photographing objects handed to Norfolk County Council’s Finds Identification and Recording Service. Hanifa and Hasan are enrolled on UEA’s MA Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies programme and began their placement with the Finds team in the first week of April.

Working from offices at the Shirehall in Norwich, the students were trained in specialised macro photography of small finds dating from the Palaeolithic through to the Post Medieval period. Macro photography is essentially taking close-up images of small objects but there is a lot to learn… With such a shallow depth of field, the photographers must make strategic decisions about which part of the object to focus on. Objects must be photographed from various angles next to a measure/rule. The next stage is to digitally remove the background and create a composite image of the object seen from different angles.

Once the photography is complete, the students learnt how objects are recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database (www.finds.org.uk) and the Norfolk Historic Environment Record. Both students really enjoyed their placement, with Hanifa saying the most interesting object they've photographed is a medieval buckle in the shape of a lion.

University of East Anglia - UEA CareerCentral : University of East Anglia UEA British Museum Norfolk Historic Environment Service

04/05/2025

We're open this bank holiday weekend, every day from 10am to 5pm.

'ONE SELF: The Creative Life of Colin Self' is open, and includes this stunning painting of fields during the harvest.

'Large Harvest Field with two Hay Bales at Happisburgh, Norfolk, Wednesday, 19th September'
Colin Self, 1984
Accession Number NWHCM : 1998.505.9

ID: A landscape painting of a golden field at harvest time with trees on the horizon. The paint is applied thickly and there is some straw on the surface of the painting. Two hay bales are shown in the distance.

30/04/2025

Norfolk Museums Service is seeking to appoint a Communications Manager to lead on media engagement, public relations and stakeholder advocacy across our ten museums.

Full time
Fixed term to 31.03.27
£36,124-£37,938
Deadline 15th May

This is an exciting time to join our service as we approach the completion of a major capital project to transform the Norman Keep within Norwich Castle and the opening of the new Gallery of Medieval Life: A British Museum Partnership. This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in one of the UK's most significant cultural moments in 2025.

More details and application portal here:
https://ow.ly/Srtx50VKh8Z

Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Time and Tide Museum of Great Yarmouth Life Ancient House Museum Cromer Museum Lynn Museum Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell Strangers' Hall

28/04/2025

🚨 SPOILER ALERT!

We visit the conservation lab, to explore some of the work going on BTS to prepare objects for display in The Gallery of Medieval Life: A British Museum Partnership, opening at Norwich Castle this summer!

🎞️ Watch the full 4-min film on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/-GuoArX6bI8
The film introduces our conservation team's work behind the scenes of The Gallery of Medieval Life: A British Museum Partnership.

👉 The Gallery of Medieval Life: A British Museum Partnership will take centre stage in Norwich Castle's redevelopment project Royal Palace Reborn. The project has received major support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Norfolk County Council

British Museum Eye Film VisitNorwich Museums Association Visit East of England Head East UK

27/04/2025

27 April 1942 is a date the people of Norwich will never forget. That night was the first of the so-called 'Baedeker Raids' on Norwich, during which 50 tons of bombs were dropped on the city, causing widespread devastation and claiming the lives of 162 residents.

These were launched on Hitler’s orders in retaliation for a Royal Air Force raid on the medieval German city of Lübeck in March 1942. The aim was to damage historic buildings of cultural importance and spread fear among the population.

This painting by Stanislaw Mikula shows the devastation as seen from Norwich Castle. At the time of the raids, the museum was hosting an exhibition called The Art of Five Polish Soldiers, including Mikula. His depictions of the London Blitz were shown alongside the battle for Lvov, his home town in Poland. After those fateful nights in 1942, this powerful work was added to the exhibition.

The Castle was unharmed.

You can see more of Mikula's work made during the Norwich Blitz here: https://bit.ly/42XfVWo

25/04/2025

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👍 Put a thumbs up in the comments when you get it. (And let us know how many pictures you needed to see until you got it!)

Not making any sense? Full explanation coming next week!