The collection covers four main themes.

• 1 Maritime History

The Trust's collection, housed mainly at Odun House, Appledore, covers the many aspects of our region's maritime trades and their worldwide connections.  These include shipbuilding and all the ancillary crafts of our local seaports, social history of the families of mariners or fisherman and economic history of maritime trades.  There is also a collection covering the experimental work of C.O.X.E. (Combined Operations Experimental Establishment), which developed all types of amphibian craft, landing craft, beach clearing machines and specialised ships equipment for the invasion of Europe in 1944.

 

The artefacts in the maritime collection range in size from and 18ft Taw/Torridge salmon boat to the needles used by sail makers.  The ship model collection range from a 9^th century Viking Ship to a dredger built in Appledore in 1997.  There are over 30 ship models on permanent display and many more in the reserve collection which also contains uniforms and navigational instruments.

 

The archives contain documents, paintings, photographs, books, audio tapes, films, video tapes and DVDs on all aspects of our maritime history

 

• 2 Agricultural Collection

The Agricultural Collection has over 260 items connected to farming, rural crafts and life in the North Devon countryside.  These range from horse drawn equipment and vintage tractors to small items of dairy equipment.  The archives have documents and photographs connected with North Devon farming, milling and the timber trade.  The bulk of this collection is in storage and only available for research by appointment.

 

• 3 Local Commerce and Industry

This covers the items not included under Maritime or Agriculture. It includes tanning, glove making, clay mines, potteries, the manufacture of agriculture machinery and other town based crafts.  It also covers transport from packhorses and wagons to canals, railways and motor transport on the roads.

 

• 4 Education

The old Coach House has been converted to house a reconstruction of a typical schoolroom to be found in our local area between 1900 and the end of the Second World War in 1945.  This enables our volunteered costumed interpreters to show groups of students what it was like to go to such a school in either Victorian times or with relatively small changes in décor, the 1940s during the Second World War.  Visiting parites are encouraged to do project work on the chosen period before their visits in order to enter into the spirit of the period chosen.

Our archives can provide information for students of all ages undertaking investigations into a wide range of subjects.  If research work is carried out by our volunteers for individuals, commercial organisations or public bodies, we may make a charge to help sustain the museum finances.  Any charge will be clearly stated when any requests for research are made and the cost stated.  Normally we ask for a donation to the Trust funds from individuals undertaking their own research as out volunteers have  to access the appropriate files.

 

As part of our outreach program our volunteers also give talks on a wide range of historical subjects to local organisations or schools

 

The exhibitions in this room gives a brief introduction to North Devon's maritime history from Viking raiders of the 9^th Century through medieval trading, Elizabethan exploration, warfare and piracy, the Transatlantic cod trade, 18^th Century smuggling and 19^th Century emigration to North America and Australia.  The subjects are illustrated by a series of dioramas, models, paintings, photographs and artefacts related to the exploits of our explorers, merchants and mariners during the past 12 centuries.

The display and models in this room show how important shipbuilding and repairing together with all the associated trades of rope making  and sail making and chandlery were to the economy of North Devon during the era of wooden shipbuilding.  A cabinet of shipwright and sail makers tools together with diorama models of shipyards, sail makers lofts and a working of a model rope walk showing how the various parts of sailing ships such as ‘HMS Tees' (28 gun 6^th-Rate ship) built by Taylor and launched at Cross Park, Bideford in 1817 and the ketch, ‘Emma Louise', built by WM Westacott at Barnstaple in 1882 would have been built and fitted out.

 

 

 

Odun House has been the home of ship owners and ships captains since it was built in c1820.  The kitchen has been reconstructed to show how the most important room in an Appledore master mariner's home would have looked in about 1900.  This was the home of some of the wealthiest people in Appledore, as shown by the children and their toys, but older members of the family who had probably endured a hard life at sea in less prosperous times, would have called in and been provided with a hot meal.  In this case the local delicacy of laver (a type of seaweed still in demand today), which had been fried in bacon fat.  The bacon provided the topping and the meal would include bread freshly baked in the cloam oven set into the wall of the fireplace.

Photographs on panels outside the kitchen show how Appledore looked during the early year of the 20^th century.

A large cloam oven produced by WH Croker's pottery at Bideford and a scalding stove and glazed pan used to make the traditional Devonshire clotted cream are just outside the kitchen under the display showing how the 15 survivors of the shipwreck of the ‘General Grant' in 1866 including members of the Jewel family of Clovelly managed to live on the remote Auckland Island to the south of New Zealand until rescued many months later.

 

 

The Staircase shows paintings of local sailing ships, a model and information on the role of ‘HMS Bideford' during World War II and panels showing the history of Richmond Shipyard and Dry Dock from its construction in 1855 to the present day line the staircase walls.

Wreck and Rescue in North Devon are featured in Room 4.  This exhibition shows a few examples from our areas long tradition of saving life in the stormy waters of the Bristol Channel including dioramas, models, photos and information on our lifeboats and their crews.

 

 

 

 

This exhibition is mainly devoted to illustrating the dramatic changes that have taken place in North Devon shipbuilding during the 20^th century, from the old yards in which building took place on open slipways to the modern ‘ship factory' at Bidna Shipyard, Appledore. Where a vessel of up to 10,000 tons, or two 5,000 tons ships can be built simultaneously in a totally covered dry dock.  A cut away model of Bidna Shipyard with press buttons which illuminate the various areas of construction within the yard helps to show how ships like the self discharging suction dredger ‘City of Chichester; built by Appledore Shipbuilders in 1997, were constructed.  The large central model of ‘City of Chichester' was made by Michael Guegan, Chairman of NDMT, who helped to build the actual ship.  Photographs of some of the 120 other vessels built at Bidna yard since it opened in 1971 are displayed on wall panels.  Part of this exhibition is in Room 7 due to lack of space.

Other displays include some of the small locally owned steam cargo ships, which took over from the sailing fleet before in turn being replaced by motor ships.  A working model of a compound steam engine, typical of the ones in the steam ships can be set in motion at the touch of a button.  A diorama model and photographs show how cargos of gravel, limestone, coal and other goods were carried to the limits of river navigation on the Taw and Torridge by a fleet of sailing barges which could lower their masts in order to pass under the arches to the long bridges of Bideford and Barnstaple.  These sailing barges were superseded in the 1920s by motor barges.

A small display of navigation instruments as used by our mariners is housed in a cabinet by the window, which gives a fine view out over the river Torridge to Instow and the hills beyond.  The mounted telescope will help you to see items of interest more clearly.

This room houses a collection of photographs, models and a few items of equipment designed, developed and tested by COXE (Combined Operations Experimental Establishment) at their top secret bases around the Taw and Torridge and on the beaches and cliffs of North Devon during the second world war.   A touch screen set into the wall can be used to call up silent film of these experiments and troop training from the film records made at the time and rediscovered in British and American archives by Tony Koorlander, who has made them available to the Trust.

Maritime Tourism to North Devon is depicted by a display including illustrations and models from the days of the early sailing ferries, which carried passengers and goods in them between the portswithin the Bristol Channel to the 19^th Century paddle steamer fleets providing fast transport from the industrial towns of South Wales and the Bristol area to the holiday resorts along our coast.  Additional information on present day ferries and pleasure craft can be fund in Room 5.

A diorama of Appledore Quay with sailing schooners, small craft shows what the quay was like in 1900, before the later widening in 1939 and again in the 1990s. A model of Richmond Dry Dock in 1906 shows how it was designed and constructed in 1855 in order  to accommodate up to three ships at a time for repair work.  Photos show how the yard was also used for ship building in the 1950s and 60s with photos of some of the ships built and the workers who built them during the time, when the yard was owned by P K Harris and Sons and later by Appledore Shipbuilders.  In 1971 most of the shipbuilding moved to Bidna covered shipyard (see Room 5.Lime burning was a very important industry in North Devon from the 17^th to the early 20^th century, when limestone and the coal needed to burn it was shipped across the Bristol Channel from South Wales to the lime kilns built along our coasts and estuaries.  The burn lime was mainly used to improve the acid soil of this region.  The diorama model depicts a typical 19^th century North Devon polacca brig beached on the foreshore at Instow lime kilns whilst delivering its cargo to the kiln.  The actual kiln can be seen on the far side of the river through the telescope in Room 5.

The island of Lundy at the entrance to the Bristol Channel is part of the County of Devon.  A model showing the landing beach on the island and panels of maps, drawings and photographs give a brief introduction to Lundy's turbulent past.

 

A fine model of the merchant schooner ‘Norsman' helps to show that Robert Cock & Sons, Appledore shipbuilders in the late 19^th century could build elegant wooden ships before changing over to riveted iron steam ships at the start of the 20^th century.

 

 

 

 

At the base of the stairs panels of photographs show the harbour at Clovelly and the open beach fishing hamlet of Bucks Mills.  The refurbished original Victorian toilet behind these panels can only be accessed by asking the staff at the desk.

A commemorative bronze sculpture of the scuttling of HMS Vindictive at the seaward entrance to Bruges Canal during the Zeebrugge raid in 1918 is situated on the bend of the stairs.  It was presented by a family of Belgian refugees who lived in Bideford during the First World War.

 

The walls of the staircase are hung with some of the last examples of ships half models used by our shipwrights to work out the size and shape of steel frames and plating before computer aided design took over in the early 1970s.  A panel of photographs show the actual ships that were build from the half models displayed.

The top floor houses the Trust's office, archives and research rooms.  These can be visited on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 2pm and 4.30pm by asking at the entrance hall desk or by appointment at other times or when the museum is closed for the winter.

 

 

 

 

The Back Garden is provided with two picnic tables for use by parties of visitors to the museum who may also want to use the schoolroom or have a guided tour of Appledore.  The old cast iron pump, for the deep well below the kitchen still stand, but the water is now no longer fit for drinking so we have had to block the pipe to the well.

The Boat Shed is situated in part of the coach house and is used for conservation work.  It is currently being used for the conservation of one of the last surviving 18ft wooden boats used for salmon netting in the Taw and Torridge estuary.  As work continues visitors will be able to question the shipwright who, as an apprentice, built the boat at Waters boatyard in Appledore.  The shipwright, Ron Slade, also carved the figure head above the entrance to the museum.