Permanent working museum .....cont..
We have re-screeded the roof to cure leaks and fitted a new secure door, we also tidied up the inside to make a kitchen and a display area. For the European Heritage in 2004 we were able, for the first time, to include a small display of war time memorabilia , this attracted considerable interest in view of the Coventry Blitz and has continued to do so in the following years. In the long term the air raid shelter will undoubtedly serve as an additional visitor attraction.
There was a large quantity of surplus soil on the garden area of the site and we have removed this manually so that the area will be suitable for erecting a temporary building . The work was completed, with the kind assistance of Coventry and District Archaeological Society and a few minor artefacts were discovered, which included 19th century beer tokens and scraps of Victorian pottery. We also uncovered the foundations of the old brew house and remnants of a cobbled yard , together with a sandstone path composed of large blocks which may have been re-cycled from the city wall.
During 2007 we paved a large part of the former garden area and erected a 5m X 6m “portal frame” steel building .We hope to start up a temporary watch museum on the site during 2008 putting on a limited number of events by utilising the air raid shelter , an existing storage building and steel building for display areas .The Watchmaking Heritage Trail, which is marked by plaques and was set up by us a few years ago, is near to our site and there is scope for us to run conducted tours which can start or end at our premises. We have still continued to put on mobile exhibitions at events such as the Earlsdon festival and the Godiva weekend and to give talks to groups.
