MALVERN Museum of Local History will be celebrating its 40th anniversary with a special event next week.

All those who are interested in the museum are being invited to come along to the Abbey Hotel on Monday, September 23.

Between 2.30pm and 4pm, and 7pm to 8.30pm, the hotel’s Shaw Suite will be the venue for the event with drinks and a piece of birthday cake on offer.

And the same day. the museum will be be open free of charge to all visitors from 10.30am to 7pm.

Cora Weaver of the museum said that its creation was inspired by the Malvern Gazette asking in January 1978 why the town lacked one.

She said: “Our town doesn’t lie back and do nothing and in May the following year, 1979, Malvern’s new museum opened its doors to the public.”

It initially occupied two rooms at Lyttelton House, on the corner of Abbey Road and the Priory Steps, but this did not provide enough space.

“There was not enough space to swing a stick insect, let alone store the many items that were being donated by local residents.

“With a sigh of relief, in 1980 the museum moved into the beautiful Priory Gatehouse and has been there ever since. “

The museum contains exhibits relation to all phases of the h town’s history, including the founding of the Priory, the Victorian water cure and the arrival of the radar establishments during the Second World War. The following Friday, September 27, is the latest in the museum’s series of talks at 7.30pm. The subject is phrenology, the 19th-century theory which involved the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.

The talk is being given by Louise Robinson, a former anatomy student and now a volunteer at Worcester’s George Marshall Medical Museum.

She will bring along a phrenology head and a chart so the audience can compare their own heads and make their own assessments.

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