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A coherent and unified museum has been created from small and separate spaces

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Words by David Tarpey

Since 19th March, 2016 at 37-41 Sun Street, Waltham Abbey, Essex, there’s relief and great contentment that four years of applications and renovations are complete and the new Epping Forest District Museum has emerged as an impressive, ‘living’ museum with the help of Heritage Lottery Funding. Hewn from a mix of Tudor, Georgian, Victorian and very modern, the older parts were a family house till the early Eighties when the original museum was created. Now the three conjoined buildings (two are listed) are one in a coherent, intelligent space – the Core Gallery.

There was much to discover as 30 years of ad-hoc redecorations were peeled back. These include a solid wood lintel nailed to the mantelpiece in the shape of a cross with the owner’s initials, thought to be a statement about warding off witches from coming down the chimney.

The storage areas have also now been opened up with viewing windows. Rolling racking allows new paintings to be seen, and mannequins are dressed in costumes from distant times.

Working on the project was Hawkins\Brown Architects. Its brief was to expand and improve upon the existing space and the full storage on site. Hawkins\Brown partner Seth Rutt says: The whole process started in 2012 as we helped the museum with its Heritage Lottery Funding application, but the process was very protracted as there was a big issue with extending and then buying a new lease...It took over a year to negotiate the lease. By the end, the museum’s floor space had doubled to 550 sq m.

‘A big feature of the work was installing a lift to allow access to all parts of the museum – Tudor, Georgian and modern – for those with limited mobility. This was a massive challenge for us and we put it in a double-height void stairwell, around which we put the staircase.

‘Our client [museum director Tony O Connor] had a keen archaeological eye here, as did the heritage officers, so we worked meticulously. We worked with a forensic level of investigation, far beyond anyone installing a modern kitchen in a Victorian townhouse for example. We also raised the level of the Victorian flooring and we even discovered original features such as Georgian timber underneath the concrete slab [installed in the Eighties] and some wattle and daub.’

One of the museum’s artefacts – initials on a cross in a timber mantlepiece

The born-again museum now has its own entrance (previously, you could only enter via the library) and can showcase its wares in an imaginative, organised and educational way. And its wares are many, as Rutt explains: ‘The museum has a huge, eclectic, local and slightly bizarre collection of items. These range from locally found Roman coins, a Tudor plough and plastic cameras from the Sixties.

Most of these had been stored in outside sheds but it had always wanted them all under one roof. So now, there’s the Core Gallery and there’s a big fireproof screen allowing visitors to look in on the Archive Gallery. Overall, though, Rutt sees this project as highly rewarding. He says: ‘This was a brilliant project, and we worked with a great team of other parties such as the client in Tony O’Connor, the contractor Coniston, the project architect Emma Lynn and Outside Studios, which designed the Core Gallery concept.

Outside Studios’ creative director Catherine Halcrow says: ‘This museum has always been run by a very can-do team with a strong sense of ownership within the local community. This was from the start a project that aimed to invest in capacity and access to enable the team to develop the new museum rather than imposing ideas from the outside. We’re really excited about the ways in which the Core Gallery equips the museum team to show the collections and will be an ongoing decant project to visitors in very direct and accessible ways, such as the innovative art racking, oriented alongside a viewing window to allow the changing of a display in seconds.’