Location | Market Hall, Monmouth, Wales |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°48′47″N 2°42′56″W / 51.8131°N 2.7156°W |
Curator | Andrew Helme |
Website | Official website |
The Monmouth Museum, alternatively known as The Nelson Museum and Local History Centre,[1] is a museum in Monmouth, Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It features a collection of artifacts associated with Admiral Horatio Nelson. The museum is located in the old Market Hall in the town centre.
History
The Nelson collection was a bequest to the town of Monmouth upon the 1923 death of Lady Georgiana Llangattock,[2] wife of local landowner and town benefactor, John Rolls, 1st Baron Llangattock, and mother of Charles Rolls, who had amassed a collection of Admiral Horatio Nelson memorabilia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the late nineteenth century, Lady Llangattock donated a gymnasium in Glendower Street to the town of Monmouth.[2][3] After her death, the gymnasium reopened as the Nelson Museum in 1924.[4] The museum moved to new quarters in 1969; the building which initially housed it is known as the Nelson Rooms.[3][5] The collection includes Nelson's naval officers fighting sword (and those of the surrendered French and Spanish naval commanders at Trafalgar); letters from Nelson both to his wife[6] and to Lady Hamilton; and various items commemorating Nelson's victories, his Royal Navy career and his visit with the Hamiltons to Monmouth town, The Kymin, and South Wales. Also on display are commemorative silverware, prints, paintings, glassware, pottery and models of the Battle of Trafalgar. Among the items from Nelson's visit is the table used when he dined at the Kymin Round House.[7]
The collection also comprises some Nelson fakes, including a glass eye purported to be his, even though he had lost his sight, not the eyeball itself; it is a surgeon's teaching model. The museum also holds items relating to Monmouth town's history and archaeology, and an archive relating to Charles Rolls and his family. One notable example of this is the only known example of an original Monmouth Cap, dating from the 16th century.
The museum opened in 1924 in the gymnasium in Glendower Street which the Llangattock family donated to mark the coming of age of John Maclean Rolls in 1891, now the Nelson Rooms.[3][8] It moved to its current location in 1969 after the Market Hall had been completely refurbished and redesigned. The entire central part of the Market Hall building had been destroyed by a fire in 1963.[9]
In June 2021, while the museum was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Monmouthshire County Council Cabinet announced that the museum would not reopen in its Market Hall location and that the collections would be relocated to the Shire Hall.[10]
Museum Collection
- Video of a 3d model of Horatio Nelson bust in Monmouth Museum, produced using photogrammetry
- Monmouth field and History society display
- The cabinet of curiosities
- An elephant's toenail, part of the cabinet of curiosities
- Cabinet of Admiral Nelson fakes and forgeries
- A model of HMS Foudroyant
- A Royal Navy dress uniform
- Horatio Nelson's fighting sword
- Carved nautilus shells to commemorate Horatio Nelson
- A model of HMS Victory
- A model of the Naval Temple at The Kymin
- Maquette of the Charles Rolls Statue at Dover, created by Kathleen Scott
- Charles Rolls driving medals
- A cabinet made of the wreckage of HMS Foudroyant and containing objects also made of the same ship
- A dress belonging to Lady Llangattock
Gallery
- The only known example of an original Monmouth cap, dating from the 16th century on display at the museum
- The Market Hall on fire in 1963
- Keith Kissack with Charles III, then Prince of Wales, at the museum in 1975
- View of Monmouth Museum from Vauxhall Fields, including the River Monnow
References
- ↑ "Monmouth Town Guide". Monmouth Town Council. Retrieved 10 December 2011.
- 1 2 "Monmouth and Its Rich Past". Herefordshire Life. 19 February 2010. Archived from the original on 13 January 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
- 1 2 3 "The Nelson Rooms, Glendower Street, No. 2, Monmouth". coflein.gov.uk. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
- ↑ "Nelson Manuscripts at Monmouth Museum". nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives - Nelson Museum and Local History Centre. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
- ↑ "Attractions - Monmouth Museum". monmouthshire.gov.uk. Monmouthshire County Council. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
- ↑ Nelson, Horatio; et al. (1958). Nelson's letters to his wife: and other documents, 1785-1831. Taylor & Francis. p. 630.
- ↑ Jones, Barbara (1974). Follies & Grottoes. Constable & Co. p. 414. ISBN 0-09-459350-7.
- ↑ Helme, Andrew (July 2009). "Nelson Museum". Monnow Voice. No. 3. p. 6.
- ↑ "The New Market Hall fire, Monmouth, 1963". Gathering the Jewels. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
- ↑ Gill, Emily (10 June 2021). "Monmouth Museum is moving from Market Hall - where its new location will be". South Wales Argus. Retrieved 26 March 2023.