Alfred Gillett Trust

20/06/2024

Help! we are looking for a used Greenbank Pool season ticket for a display in the new Shoemakers Museum. The museum opens in 2025 and we are busy preparing content for the new galleries now. A used season ticket is the missing piece of a story we'd like to tell. Can you help? If you have one that you would be happy to donate, please let us know!

The opening of Greenbank pool on 30th April 1937. Katherine Miller is delivering a speech about Alice Clark, the benefactor who enabled the pool to be created.

Street Parish Council Shoemakers Museum

19/06/2024

18/06/2024

A belated happy Father’s Day to all Fathers, Dads, Grandads and memories of them… Hope you are enjoying the sunshine this week!
With an opportunity to kick back and relax. Here is how they did it in 1955, in display cards celebrating Clarks Flotillas – a range of men’s casual footwear. However you’re celebrating or remembering, we hope it’s fun, relaxed and wonderful. 🌴☀️👨‍👨‍👦👞

04/06/2024

We love the new flags that Street Parish Council have popped up along the High Street 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 for . The original 1970s flag designed by Gilbert Baker is inspiration to show off some the shoes from our historic collection 👠👠👠

30/05/2024

The sun was on our side yesterday for a celebration. The foundations of the new Shoemakers Museum building in Street, Somerset have been laid. To celebrate we planted a new pear tree in the Orchard at the Grange. In keeping with the theme of the new museum the tree was planted by two local shoemakers - Howard Burch, retired from the old Junitor factory and Angela Southern from HQ who now volunteers for us. The tree was planted with two lasts for luck. Fitting symbols for the new museum.

It was a lovely day for staff, volunteers and special guests to enjoy the fruits of the orchard with delicious apple juice from and cake from , and mark the building of the new Shoemakers Museum due to open in 2025.

29/05/2024

On 5th June we are hosting a Friends of Street Library event a Book Talk Moederland by Cato Pedder doors 5pm event starts 5.30pm. Its is free to attend but seats are limited so please arrive early if you can.

📚The Friends of Street Library are holding an author event at the Grange in Street. 📚

29/05/2024

Congratulations to all the participants of the Street Parish Council Community Awards and Investiture 2024.

22/05/2024

Do you remember buying your baby’s first pair of shoes? Back when marketing was a personal letter in the post we have a letter for Mums who were interested in Clarks First Shoes. There was even a competition to win free Clarks shoes for their child up to their 6th birthday! We enjoyed the top tip to go shopping on a weekday so it’s less stressful for Mum and baby than a Saturday. 👶🏼 👣

18/05/2024

18 May is international museum's day celebrating the role museums play in serving their communities. The Grange has played many roles in the history Street, from its early days as a farm, a hospital, a refuge, an education centre, a training centre for shoemaking, and now the foundations are laid as it transforms into the Shoemakers Museum due to open in 2025.

17/05/2024

To celebrate our local history we’re sharing these pictures from our Point of Sale collection. These are from 1942 and are praising the beauty of Somerset, showcasing beautiful cottages in Bratton, and Allerford Bridge. Do you know these cottages in Bratton? And is the bridge just as picturesque in 2024?

16/05/2024

Wassail Theatre Company are performing Birthday Day at The Grange on 1 September. A farming family tale of secrets and generations. Here's a taster of what's it all about... We can't wait to see them as they round up our at The Grange.! Find out more on the AGT website alfredgilletttrust.org/whats-on where you can also book your tickets.

01/05/2024

Get your picnic baskets ready for a summer of theatre. We’ve got time machines, dragons, strawberry pavlovas and more coming to the Grange this summer in a season of family friendly summer plays in the garden. Tickets available to book soon.
Watch this space or sign up to our newsletter for details.

24/04/2024

The NHS return to the Grange on 26 April to deliver the Spring vaccine programme. They will be here on Fridays only starting 26 April until the end of May. Strictly by appointment only! They are available for those over 75. Please contact your NHS provider if you wish to book.

17/04/2024

The secret lives of the badgers here at The Grange are laugh out loud! Here are a few recent badger-cam highlights. Badgers do zoomies - who knew!
🦡🦡🦡

11/04/2024

Despite the changeable weather, blossom on the pear tree and flowers in the garden are a very welcome sign that Spring is happening here at The Grange. 🌸🌳🌼

21/03/2024

Happy

‘Full many a thought, of character sublime
Conceived in darkness, here shall be unrolled
The mystery of number and time
Is here displayed in characters of gold
Transcribe each line composed by this machine
Record the fleeting thoughts as they arise
A line, once lost, may ne’er be seen again;
A thought, once flown, perhaps for ever flies’

This extract is displayed on our poetry automaton, the Latin Verse Machine. This awe inspiring invention was created between 1830 and 1845 by John Clark, cousin of the founders of and was showcased at Egyptian Hall in London in 1845. The machine still works today but is rarely tested in order to preserve it for generations to come.

❤️

20/03/2024

It is . 😊 😊 😊
Shoes make us smile here at the future Shoemakers Museum – as well they should with over 25,000 of them in our museum store
What could be cheerier than this beaut of shoe with happiness in the name…..
The Joyance t-bar sandal! 👡👡👡

What is making you happy today?

08/03/2024

Join us this as we take part in the conversation to ✊ ✊ ✊

From 11am the Grange will be open as we host our friends and historian extraordinaire giving a talk at 1pm, as we focus in on some of the incredible women whose stories may have been lost in time



Image: School of Housewifery at the Grange (1897)

07/03/2024

🥳Join us at the Grange in Street from 11am tomorrow as we discover some of the incredible women from our collection for International Women's Day. We will be joined our dear friends A Few Forgotten Women who will be showcasing their incredible research projects, including highlights from their research into the Grange when it was a school of housewifery - all of this amazing content is free! 🤩 From 1pm the incredible Janet Braund Few will be on site for her talk 'Forgotten Women - researching the marginalised women of your family tree' - online ticket sales have now closed but there will be a handful of tickets available to buy on the door 🎫🎟 https://alfredgilletttrust.org/whats-on/

01/03/2024

Does anyone recognise this missing person? 👧🧸🕵🏽
Found in the Orchard at the Grange. She is currently warming up with a biscuit and a nice cup of tea. Let us know if she is yours - we'd love to reunite her with her family.

29/02/2024

This International Women’s Day, join us as we highlight some of the incredible women whose stories may have been lost in time. The Grange will be open from 11am until 3.30pm and hosting our friends over as they showcase one of their research projects into the School of Housewifery at the Grange.

We are also thrilled that we will be joined by historian extraordinaire at 1pm who will be delivering her popular talk ‘Forgotten Women: Researching the Marginalised Women on your Family Tree’ with some tickets still available - book online or on the door with signed copies of her new book on sale.

UPDATE: Tier 1 tickets to the talk are sold out but there are a few tier 2 and 3 still available. A handful of tickets will also be available on the day on a first come first served basis!

Tickets are available
https://alfredgilletttrust.org/whats-on/

27/02/2024

This scrumptious chap can be found hopping around the grounds at the front of the Grange – look out around the hedges at the entrance. It’s a Redwing, Turdus iliacus. This winter visitor and is the UK's smallest true thrush. They roam across the UK's countryside, feeding in fields and hedgerows, rarely visiting gardens, except in the coldest weather. We cannot get enough of our wonderful wildlife friends who live and visit our historic site
🌳🐦🦊🦡

Image: Redwing. Woodland Trust

20/02/2024

At the Shoemakers Museum we’re used to foxing – it’s the term for the reddish/brown spots found on old artefacts, paper, and fabric. This russet beauty is quite a bit more glamorous and also quite brave checking out our resident badger sett.



🦊 🦊 🦊

16/02/2024

Are you a finance ninja 🥷🏽and do you have some free time to help us create the new in Street? We have teamed up with Nurole to find a new trustee to join our Board. Head on over to https://www.nurole.com/alfred-gillett-trust to find out more and apply today

14/02/2024

Happy 💗 We love this incredible piece of art created in 1935 by Andrew Johnson for Clarks Shoes . Mr Johnson was known throughout the 1920s and 1930s and commissioned by our friends London Transport Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and National Railway Museum to produce posters.
Add some elegance to your – can you recreate this romantic picture?

11/02/2024

Meet our very own 🦉 have long been championing the importance of correctly fitted shoes and this was used to send this message loud and clear in 1941. Advertising material like this was used in stores to sell Clarks shoes and we have over 30,000 pieces of incredible art and displays some of which will be showcased in the new 🏈

10/02/2024

Happy , the year of the dragon 🐉!
Meet Scuff the Wicked Dragon who appeared in the 1980s as part of a range of Kidproof shoes by K Shoes. Do you remember him?

🐉

26/01/2024

It was this week and we are thrilled to share this incredible banner for . The original ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’ banner was displayed at a meeting of the Women’s Peace Crusade in London in 1928 where Cato Smuts gave her first major speech to an audience of 2400 people, still exists. The banner was created by Alice Clark during the Boer War.

Image courtesy of ref TWL_1998_43 where the original still resides.

International Day of Education | UNESCO

16/01/2024

A gurt massive THANK YOU to everyone who attended our Wassail 🥳🍎🍏🍎 We had an amazing time celebrating this ancient tradition with you. Thanks also to.... our Master of Ceremony Les Davies - Westcountryman, local storyteller extraordinaire Jane Flood, the wildly good The Langport Mummers and finally to Burns The Bread and Hecks Cider Farm for their generous donations. If you attended and enjoyed this event, help us to keep the charity alive by donating today http://bit.ly/AlfredGillettTrustDonate