Jeanne Dingle RIP

It was very sad to hear this week that Jeanne, a former curator of the museum had passed away. Jeanne was a 'pillar of the community' not only as part of the museum, but also several choirs and a big part of Looe Friendly Wives, where she could be seen in their famous pantomimes and carnival floats. Her smile could light up a room and she will be sadly missed by the museum and the town.

March 20th 2022

The Raddy Collection Exhibition
20TH -30TH OCTOBER
In the Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol
11 till 4 each day

Come and look at these important images of Looe's Past which were kindly shared with us by Colin Raddy and digitised by Genus with a South West Museums SGBI grant.
We will be exhibiting the same images upstairs as well as downstairs, so everybody will be able to view them, regardless of any access problems you may have.


Plus....The Raddy Collection images are now available to browse and buy on-line...
Chose from 100s of images in various formats

View Here

Re-Opening the Museum (May 11th 2021)
Whoever would have believed in 2020 that the World would be affected by a Pandemic like COVID, and sadly it continues to spread.
We are delighted that the museum is able to open again on May 17th, and we have all the precautions in place including:

• Only four people, including children, allowed in the museum at a time. Children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.
• Masks to be worn by adults
• The desk area for the volunteers has a screen in front of it, which protects both the volunteers and our visitors.
• Our museum guide is now available as a leaflet for 50p – full of lots of interesting facts and photos.
• We will have colouring in sheets that children can take home
• Children can also do our Crab Quiz and also perform the Court plays with their family!
• The volunteers have a strict cleaning regime in place, and all surfaces, including door handles, stair rails and light switches will be cleaned after every visit.
• Disabled visitors can enter the museum via a ramp on the back door and we have a guide of the top floor of the museum on our television on the lower floor. Please ring 01503 263709 if you need to use this, giving your name, and the date and time that you have booked tickets for.
• Dogs are allowed in the museum, but they must be on a lead.

We have two new exhibitions this year, and we thank all of the teams at the Coastal Communities Fund, Cornwall Museums Partnership, Falmouth University and PLB for their support with our project.

When we open we will have our Immersive Smuggling Cabinet in place, which asks our visitors whether smuggling was right or wrong, as well as showing the Timeline for the history of Looe Island and the rising tide levels.  Designed by PLB it has been a wonderful way to include our volunteers ,over the Lockdowns, with the research, recording of character readings, and Zoom discussions. We have all benefited from this as it has kept us together as a Team, a very important part of our museum ethos.

On June 9th we will open our new Looe Island Augmented Reality model, designed by Falmouth University. Our Augmented Reality experience will follow the imagined journey of a monk and a pilgrim on Looe island, which was once home to a Benedictine chapel built in 1139. Within the museum, visitors will use tablets to hover over points on a 3D wooden map of the island to activate projected scenes from the story. They can choose characters to talk to as they find out more about the monks who lived on the island, whilst collecting ingredients to create a tincture for a fellow sea-sick pilgrim.

We are really looking forward to welcoming all of our visitors and please see our booking system on the website.

Because of the loss of income over the last year we will now be asking for a donation of £10 towards Family History Research. Our two volunteers work very hard with the many requests that we get every year, including 2020, and if a request is going to take a lot of time, we will charge an hourly rate. Over the Lockdowns we have answered over 50 family history requests and I am very grateful to our volunteers, Penny and David, who give so much of their time to research the information needed.
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We are asking our visitors, including those online, to give us donations, if they can, towards our project for 2021, which is to renew our old cabinets with more modern ones, which are easier to open and conservation friendly, as well as enabling our visitors to have a better view of our artefacts, including their information and Looe stories.
 
We look forward to welcoming all of our visitors, young and old, and sharing our small museum and its many stories.
 
Petra Stephenson
Volunteer museum manager
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Daniel James O’Connell    (24th July 1944- 25th March 2021)
The museum team sadly announce the recent passing of one of our valued volunteers.  Dan began his service to the museum around eleven years ago and was one of our longest serving volunteers.  He enjoyed engaging with our visitors and entertained them with some great stories about our exhibits, laced with his own particular brand of humour.  He was fascinated with the history of Looe Island and especially with the legend of the child Jesus visiting the island with Joseph of Arimathea.  He was also immensely proud of his large family and would happily share stories of the exploits and achievements of his children – the ‘Magnificent Seven’. 
We won’t forget you Dan. Rest in Peace.