Cuckfield Museum has held several special events and displays over the years. Below is just a selection:
Cuckfield was the small, ancient village which rejected the coming of the modern world when the railway arrived in 1841 so that the station was built in the middle of the nearby Heath. Our display opened with an early C19th painting of the empty Heath contrasted with a densely populated aerial view of the station area from the 1970s.
For more information please click here.
Our winter display in 2018 looked at the different lives which awaited people at the end of World War I and is part of the ‘Cuckfield Remembers 1918-2018’ commemoration this autumn. From the joy of families welcoming their returning men: we had the Welcome Home dinner menu featuring every type of roast meat and Christmas puddings, and this was in April! To the comrades’ fishing outing, all dressed up for the occasion.
For more information please click here.
In 1914, Cuckfield was a small village of approximately 2,000 souls of which 462 signed up for military service during the war years. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the ‘War to end all Wars’ ended. In 2018 we commemorated the First World War Armistice centenary with a Photographic Trail around the village as well as a display of photographs of 72 of the 81 men from the village who died on active service.
For more information please click here.
To complement the celebrations in Haywards Heath, Cuckfield Museum devoted much of its display space to commemorating the railway station’s 175th anniversary. We looked at why the line did not come through (or rather under) Cuckfield as originally planned and we remembered Joseph Flesher, the engineer responsible for our local stretch of the line, who is buried in Cuckfield churchyard and whose descendants still live locally. For more information please click here.
The Skeptics Society, based in California, visited Whitemans Green and the Mantell Monument to see the place where some of the first fossils to be recognised as dinosaurs were found.Their visit was one stop on a grand geological and scientific tour of Great Britain that included national museums, the birthplaces and homes of famous scientists and iconic geological landscapes. The museum had organised to meet the group as a surprise with examples of the local stone and replicas of the finds. For more information please click here.
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI, Cuckfield Museum was lent some fascinating objects which were on display as part of its ‘A Small Town at War’ exhibition.This included a drawstring bag, known popularly as a Dorothy bag, which was labelled and usually tied around the soldier’s neck to prevent it being lost.
For more information please click here.
100 years ago, 50,000 women from all over Britain walked to London and converged on Hyde Park, to demonstrate for the right to vote. It was called The Great Pilgrimage for Women’s Suffrage and was organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, or the Suffragist. Edith Bevan, who lived at Horsgate House in Cuckfield, was the Secretary and Treasurer of the Cuckfield branch. This was why the Sussex route came through Cuckfield. For more information please click here.
In 1941 Mrs Kleinwort became the Women’s Voluntary Services for Civil Defence (W.V.S) County Organiser for East Sussex, which at that time included Cuckfield. When we started looking into exactly what that role involved, it very quickly became clear that the WVS undertook such a hugely diverse range of activities for the war effort that only some could be represented in our display. For more information please click here.
On Sunday, May 19th 2013 Cuckfield celebrated a friendship which goes back nearly 74 years to September 1st 1939 when, at the outset of the Second World War, a group of evacuees arrived in the village from Stepney in the East End of London. Four of the evacuees came down with their families to dedicate a plaque in the entrance of the Queen’s Hall, thanking the village for the kindness shown to them during the War. For more information please click here.
If you are interested in this or any other Cuckfield topics, why not visit us in the museum.