Summer Story Challenge Stories Revealed
Following our successful story challenge last summer, we welcomed the runners up and winners to the museum last month to claim their prizes of an exclusive behind the scenes tour and ‘Be a Curator’ experience.
The runners up were taken beyond the public galleries to our museum stores on Saturday 20th January to see some of the treasures our visitors don’t usually get to see. Lily, Callum and Anna were taken back nearly one million years by Chief Operating Officer Lucy Bridal, to the stone tools of our early ancestors, found not too far away at Milford Hill. They then saw mammoth teeth from Fisherton and even sarsen and bluestone from Stonehenge! This was followed by a whizz through the fashion store, geology store to spot the Ichthyosaur fossils and then on to some of our real ‘treasures’ such as the brilliant bronze of the Wylye Hoard and the glistening gold of a Tudor diamond ring.
The winners became curators for the day on Sunday 21st January, exploring our stores with museum Director Adrian Green. Alaina, Poppy, Hannah and Lisa were also transported back to look at woolly rhino teeth and mammoth tusks, intricately worked flint arrow heads and polished axes, some of the earliest gold ever found, and roman coins and pots with finger prints from their makers still telling the objects’ stories. After spending the morning seeing what our collections have to offer, it was time for the group to curate their display to be exhibited in the museum, right where our visitors start their visit. There was so much to choose from – almost all of time! – but a selection from the prehistoric and Roman periods were settled on and the exhibition was installed with each winner’s chosen object.
You can come along and see our display until the summer, when we will be running the Summer Story Challenge once again and looking for a new team of story tellers to choose objects from our new galleries to inspire and create the imaginative stories for.
If you are looking for inspiration, read our 2023 runner up and winning stories below.
Runners Up:
Winners:
