Page 105 - MERCIAN Eagle 2021

Museum of the Mercian
Regiment (Worcestershire
& Sherwood Foresters
Collection)
Jennifer Brookman-Moore, Curator
The year began with a busy 6 months of installing the museum gallery at Nottingham Castle. Over the past year we worked with several consultants on the gallery and managed to nail down the design.
One of the key decisions involved deciding to have the graphics outside of the display cases, therefore maximizing the space inside the cases for the objects.
A second key decision is changing the colour of the fabric inside the cases to grey from beige. The display cases had been in store for the past three years and due to the colour and condition of the fabric we believed changing the colour was for the best. From the images I am sure you will agree;
it’s amazing what changing the colour did for the objects. Once the cases were rebuilt, we then were able to reinstall the objects.
Due to COVID-19 we were restricted in who we could have on site at the Castle, and as a result we enlisted the help of members of staff from Army Museums Ogilby Trust (AMOT), who are fully trained in object handling and were more than willing to help with the reinstallation of the objects. I think they were thankful to get back out into the world after being locked down!
Thanks are needed for the AMOT Team, members of the IET and C Coy 4 MERCIAN at
Bulwell for their help with the museum in 2021! Another change we made to the gallery was to
the introduction of Star Objects. This is an extension to the traditional museum label and enables us
to tell more of the history of an object. These will
be changed every year, thus allowing more of the collections stories to be told to the visitors.
2021 Star Objects are currently:
• A rare gold medal of Lt Col William Guard
of the 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment of
Foot
• The Wig tin of Captain Dietrcitsen of the
2/7th (Robin Hood Rifles)
• Battalion who was KIA in Dublin 1916 • Mess tin of WW2 POW from the 1/5th
Battalion Sherwood Foresters who was
captured in Singapore 1942
• The mess kit of Captain Sean Dolan of 1
WFR
• The helmet of Ben Umney of 2 MERCIAN • The Duke of St. Albans Cup of the Robin
Hood Rifles
• The Frock Coat of General Sir Horace
Lockwood Smith-Dorrien, GCB, GCMG,
DSO, ADC
The gallery and the whole of Nottingham Castle
reopened to the public in June 2021. Current
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