Museum plan for market house

10:20am Saturday 16th August 2008

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LEDBURY Market House could find a new lease of life as a museum, with displays on the area’s literary heritage and its Civil War history.

The town’s tour guide, Elisabeth Galvin has recently produced a report for the town council on possible grant funding for a number of newly proposed projects.

These include a Civil War display and a Poets’ Corner in the Market House.

The Corner would celebrate famous men and women who lived or worked in the Ledbury area, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the former Poet Laureate, John Masefield and the Dymock Poets.

The Dymock Poets were a group of writers who influenced each other while living in the Dymock area, just before the First World War.

Members included Robert Frost and Edward Thomas.

The Battle of Ledbury took place in 1645, and local tradition has it that Cavaliers and Roundheads clashed outside the Market House itself Both of the proposed displays would be supported by new information leaflets.

A grant-funded pilot scheme to use the Market House and the Elizabethan Painted Room is already up and running, and visits from Ledbury Primary School children have already taken place.

Aspects include creative packs for youngsters to use and the creation of miniature Elizabethan knot gardens, using tissue and other materials.

This scheme could be rolled out to include other schools by the end of the year.