Evmt.org.uk is the Eden Valley Museum, located in the UK
Title
Eden Valley Museum, Edenbridge, Kent promotes research into the history of the Eden Valley and its people
Description
We are over one hundred members of the Eden Valley community, many from the town of Edenbridge. Some of us got together in 1995 following a successful exhibition to celebrate a century of Edenbridge Town Council. The concept of a museum for the locality, originally floated some years earlier when a local water mill seemed to be an ideal location, developed and we eventually persuaded Edenbridge Town Council to rent us Church House a building of Medieval origin. A successful application to a local trust, The Great Stonebridge Trust, followed and a charitable trust was established in 1997. We then made an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund which was agreed in 1999.
Fifty eight volunteers worked on the project from 1997 in a variety of ways. We formed a Research Group to develop the collection, a Catalogue Team and an Information Technology Team to develop an interactive CD ROM. A Costume Team and a Construction Team followed later and shortly before opening in 2000 we established a group of over thirty museum assistants and provided them with training.
One of the principles on which the museum was founded was a museum for the local community and visitors developed and run by the community with professional help. To establish the museum we employed professional designers and media experts and appointed a part time professional curator.
