LOCS works in close association with Looe Museum, situated on Fore Street, East Looe. The Curator of the Museum, Barbara Birchwood-Harper is also the Archivist of LOCS. Barbara writes:
Looe Museum 2009
Looe Museum is owned by East Looe Town Trust, it is a private museum but, as a Registered one, conforms to all the proper regulations. As ELTT is a charity, we have to conform to Charity Commissioners guidelines & as such, we need to make a profit. Our opening times are regulated, we open for 8 days at Easter then close until Spring Bank Holiday Sunday which is 24th May this year. We open from Sunday to Friday from to . We close at the end of September.
This year we are celebrating Henry 8th accession with quizzes to test visitors’ knowledge of this well known monarch, there are 2 levels, one for the young & the other for the rest of the family, time for a family competition!
With the recent Time Team programme about the 2 Chapels of Lamanna, we have expanded our collection of information, please ask at the desk if you wish to study the extra archives on loan from LOCS.
Our Photo Archive is growing as is our collection of family trees of Looe folk. We have a fiche reader & details of 13 local parish registers.
We look forward to welcoming you whether you just want a flavour of Looe’s past or stay a while & read up on a favourite topic from our collection of folders & books.
Finally………….we have just had a tooth identified as a Mastadon tooth from 2 million years ago!
Family History
2008 was the year in which Looe hosted not only the Gorsedd but also Dewhellans, a festival at which descendants of 19th century emigrants who left Cornwall to find work abroad, return to their roots. The focus this year at the museum, was on Family History and events are being organised for research. We have fiches of Parish Registers for 13 local parishes and Census information for all except 1861 & 1901. In addition, we are collecting information about local properties and have some Deeds. Wills & Caradon listings to help people to trace the history of local buildings. Our visitors may even be able to find an image of family members or former family homes in our extensive photograph archive. For more on this go to "
Exploring Family History".
Looe Photo Archive
Many new owners come in to look through our large photographic archive for images of their house. We were given access to 3 local collections of photographs in 2007, these have been copied and, thanks to the generosity of the original owners, we are able to sell copies. We find that people like to look back at how Looe looked in the past. So come in and browse through a century or so of people, places & fishing boats.
Documents
We have collected a number of deeds and wills and are currently indexing these together with details of the deeds held by LOCS. Whilst it adds to the excitement of discovery to see an ancestor’s name in a document, it is not always possible to trace the exact position of a property, but it can be fun following the clues. Wills are, of course, very useful but so far we only have a few.
Watercolours
Our famous Samuel Cook watercolours have been restored and re framed and are now on view again giving a snapshot of Looe groyne ( pre Banjo Pier) the old mill and old bridge in about 1850. We have a few more watercolours depicting the bridge and the river. Prints of these paintings are on sale as is a print of the huge photograph of Looe in 1870.
Do you recognise anyone here?
This is taken of the Weslyan School class in Dec. 1955. Does any one recognise themselves, or indeed any other friend?
This was found over the door of 2 Orchard Cottage on West Looe Hill above the Catholic Church. It is now in LOCS archives, but what does it depict? Is it some sort of heraldic design?
This is clearly East Looe, but where was the photo taken and what was the occasion?
Barbara Birchwood-Harper B.A. Curator
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