Saving the past for the future: The rise and fall of a Welsh Marches house

This is the story of a little known house with a big and forgotten history in the North of Wales.

Plas yn Bwl House is a Grade II* building located in a prominent location overlooking the historic Welsh village of Caergwrle in Flintshire. It is adjacent to the medieval castle and has far-reaching views to what were once the important medieval fisheries and mills of the Dee Estuary and the Wirral to the North. The ancient palatinate state of Chester is 11 miles to the North East.

To all intents and purposes from the front it looks like an early Victorian sandstone house with large sash windows and thick Welsh slates on the steep roof. The only clue is that lovely humped ridge hiding the crooked ancient oak trusses beneath. At the back, however, it nestles deep into the hillside and an ancient landscape of meadows, streams, ponds and dry-stone walls. From here it can be better understood: a square tower houses a stunning stone spiral staircase, and the massive scars of walls that once continued out to form a medieval hall with solar above are still visible.

We bought Plas yn Bwl in 2018 – a forgotten and neglected piece of history – and have spent 6 years resurrecting both its narrative and fabric. In 2023, with the support of Clwd-Powys Archaeological Trust, we revealed the entire extent of the medieval hall, which had remained buried and undiscovered for many hundreds of years. You can view the photogrammetry here.

With its square tower, stone spiral staircase with remnants of ironmongery for heavy fortified doors, it is possible that we are caring for the remains of a rare Welsh tower house or fortified manor, a theory made more likely when the history of the house is understood.

The tower at Gwydir Castle, Llanrwst, Wales

The earliest reference to the house appears in P.C. Bartrum’s Welsh genealogies. An online version of his family trees can be found at FamilySearch and entries on this suggest that the house dates from the 1350s. However, others including Cadw – the Welsh body responsible for listing heritage sites – describe it as late medieval. What is certain is that it formed part of one of the estates of the Boldes, Bowldes or de Boldes. The de Boldes were a family of knights with their ancestral roots stretching back to the 1100s and their ancestral seat at Bold Hall in Lancashire. In earlier references to the house it is called Plas y Bowld – the mansion of the Boldes – and the name probably mutated to Bwl as a result of a misunderstanding when in 1699 it was described by Edward Lhwyd in Part I of Parochialia as Plas yn Bwl ‘belonging to ye Bulls.’ (p.96) No Bulls have been identified.

What has become increasingly clear during research is that Plas yn Bwl did not start life as a Welsh gentleman’s house, and that the Boldes were a family intrinsically linked with the repression of the Welsh and the Marcher lordship system and this is the reason for its semi-fortified status with metre thick stone walls and a tower – it was potentially to protect the family from the Welsh. The Boldes had close connections with the powerful Stanley family, later the Earls of Derby, and by 1401 Sir John Stanley was granted the Marcher lordship of Hopedale by Henry IV. Hopedale incorporated the medieval villages of Hope and Queen’s Hope with its castle, later Caergwrle, so this was undoubtedly the catalyst for the Boldes’ presence in the village. By 1403 Sir John and Thomas de Bolde were fighting as Lord Stanley’s knights to combat the uprising of Owain Glyn Dŵr. Later, perhaps rewarded for their loyalty, the two brothers or half-brothers, were serving as Constables of Conwy and Chester castles respectively.

Plaque dedicated to Owain Glyn Dŵr in Yr Hôb or Hope, Flintshire

It appears Plas yn Bwl fell on hard times and went into decline. It is possible that from the late 1400s the Earls of Derby and the Boldes attentions were distracted by the Wars of the Roses, and certainly by 1536 the Act of Union which incorporated Wales into England also abolished the Marcher lordship system. According to Bartrum and also Jacob Youde William Lloyd (Vol III, pp.36-37) around 1430 an heiress, Janet Bolde, had inherited the house and with her marriage to Jeffrey Whitford or Chwitfford, ownership left the Boldes. Later, with another heiress, Margred Chwitfford, marrying into the Griffiths of nearby Brymbo Hall, the house was subsumed into the estates of the Griffiths. By 1699, when Lhwyd described the house, it was owned by the Yonge family of the nearby Bryn Iorcyn estate and remained a part of this estate up to the early 20th century.

Plas yn Bwl has remained unassuming and silent, quietly sinking into its landscape over the centuries. Although it has no voice, it has found its way into two images from 1742 and 1795.

The North West view of Caergwrley Castle in the County of Flint by Samuel Buck, 1742, National Library of Wales

South aspect of Caergwrle Castle by John Ingleby, circa 1795, National Library of Wales

The castle today taken from same spot as 1795 print with position of Plas yn Bwl in foreground and Bryn Iorcyn Manor beyond

As Bryn Iorcyn also declined in status, with absentee landlords and tenant farmers, it seems by the early 19th century Plas yn Bwl had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it was rebuilt as a row of six workers cottages, reflected in the 1850 tithe map and in the national census’ for 1851, 1861, and 1901.Thankfully, some early features survived such as the stone spiral staircase now impossibly worn by centuries of feet – and going nowhere, the main chimney and fireplace and door arches. Outside the ruins of the medieval hall were buried and forgotten.

The house remained as a row of tenanted cottages occupied by farm workers, coalminers etc, but by the 1960s or 1970s the four adjoining cottages were derelict and with the surviving remains of the medieval house potentially at risk it was listed in 1962 as Grade II*.

Grave stone in Hope churchyard: ‘In memory of Mary Evans, wife of Thomas Evans of PlasynBull who departed this life June [?] 1830 aged 40. Also Elizabeth daughter of the above who died Nov 12^th 1821 aged 1 year. Also Robert son of the above who died [….]’

Plas yn Bwl circa 1900 reimagined as a row of 6 estate / workers cottages. Image shared on Facebook, source unknown

View of Bryn Yorkin Lane, Caergwrle, with Plas yn Bwl at top circa 1900. From shared photocopy, source unknown

A bleak image circa 1940; the cottages are now in poor repair. Note the arches appearing through the whitewash – were they converted from an earlier barn? Source unknown – shared on Facebook.

The rear of Plas yn Bwl; circa early 1960. Was this taken at the time of the house listing? Note the cottages are still there, but the house is semi ruinous. Image from North East Wales Archives; Cat No: PH/12/43

The rear of Plas yn Bwl from the footpath; circa early 1960. Image from North East Wales Archives; Cat No: PH/12/42;

The stunning blocked up doorway on the East face. Evidence of earlier archway above. Detail later covered in cement render to be uncovered by us. Photo circa early 1960 from North East Wales Archives; Cat No: PH-12-0041

Plas yn Bwl circa 1970. The row of whitewashed cottages are now derelict and were demolished shortly afterwards. Source unknown: shared on Facebook.

By the late 1970s, despite being part of the curtilage of the main house, the four cottages were demolished and the area to the side and in front of the house redeveloped as a small estate of houses. At around the same time the family who then owned the main house (the two surviving cottages) were given a council grant to rectify what were undoubtedly sub-standard living conditions. Sadly, during this process flagstone floors, hearths and ranges were removed, a new concrete floor with a plastic damp proof membrane was laid throughout and all internal walls were given a thick coat of cement render.

We have been custodians of Plas yn Bwl House for six precious years. During our stay we’ve reconsolidated the house as one, repaired the roof and chimneys, replaced rotten lintels, repointed with lime, stripped out all the cement render from the internal walls, had new sash and casement windows made, opened up the main fireplace and installed a multifuel burner, sourced flags for the floors and much more. We’ve worked with the local conservation officer, a conservation architect, architectural historian and archaeologist to reinterpret the house and place it back in its historical landscape. We hope our interventions and love have stopped the decline and fall and will begin its rise as the important house it once was.

Plas yn Bwl House is now for sale at auction – you can find it here. We would love its next custodians to have the empathy and vision to continue the journey we began.

The fireplace before inglenook was found
Lining the chimney in preparation for installing the burner
Discovering the medieval hall walls at the back of the house – buried
Digging out the medieval wall
Working with the archaeologist to dig out the medieval hall walls
Archaeologist
Llay Hall brick
Concrete tiles removed from kitchen roof
Rotten roof timbers by parapet wall
Replacing coping stones
Old iron nail from roof
Work on the rotten roof valley replacing with reclaimed oak
Roof topping out
Lead detail under coping stones to stop water ingress
Old wooden pegs from roof
Newly planted copper beech
Second year of Butterbur planted in the field
Living room in cottage 1 at purchase – no sign of the inglenook or bread oven
At the salvage yard again – looking for York flags for inglenook
Fireplace revealed with multifuel burner installed and new flags
Removing cement render from stone walls
At the salvage yard – choosing reclaimed flags
New engineered brackets to support living room beams – painted and drying
Removing a toad from the house!
Kitchen at point of purchase
Kitchen arch boxed in, tiled and painted
Quarry tiles in kitchen under vinyl
Boxing in and tiles removed from kitchen archway
Lowering old water tank from kitchen roof
Emerging from a place of comfort during building work
Uncovering arch detail in door between kitchen and living room
Fish pie
Early blocked up window in back stairs
Second back kitchen
Spiral staircase at point of purchase
Spiral staircase at point of purchase
Removing the cement render from the spiral staircase
Removing the cement render from the spiral staircase
Evidence of door bars on spiral staircase
Downstairs bedroom / dairy at point of purchase
Opening up upstairs door between two cottages
Opening up downstairs door between two cottages
Main bedroom at point of purchase
Attic or cluster fly infestations
Sooo cold in the study …
Striping out the back shower room and installing drainage
Damp penetrating through the cement render
Removing artex from the shower room ceiling
Apple from the Cats Head tree
Dug up in field
Damson jam
Clearing out the pigeon lofts
Another hard day
Bunk complete with heated blanket
Damson crop
Another year of laden damson tree
Samples of reconstituted flag stones – much cheaper but not allowed
Wood pigeon and red wine gravy
Amazing poo!! We have a hedgehog
Mother duck and ducklings appear in the garden one morning
A day off at Talacre Beach
Snaxident
Thinking about the floors – lovely but too expensive!
Game pie!
Help with the PhD thesis writing
Arrival of reclaimed thick Welsh slates from an old hospital in South Wales
Damson and quince gin
Chicken in the slow cooker
Dairy and gluten free lasagne
A day off a Ness Botanical Gardens
Chowder!
Accoya casement and sash windows being made in Yorkshire
Accoya casement and sash windows being made in Yorkshire
Slate sizes
Parasol mushroom
Shelter from the rain under the crooked apple tree

Police records, history and accountability

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This is my blog on the Campaign for Records website which was published in May 2022

My interest in police records began whilst working as the curator of a police force museum. The small and closed facility held a diverse collection including a large archive of general orders, station ledgers, personnel registers and some more challenging files relating to the investigation of serious crimes such as murder.

I’m not an archivist — my background is working with museum collections — but my interest was piqued when it dawned on me that most of this archive had come into the museum via informal means — and by informal I mean that it had not been transferred from the force’s records management system. Instead, they were private or individual donations from retired police officers, the relatives of officers who had since died or as the result of station closures and clear-outs when individual officers had taken an unofficial decision not to throw papers onto a skip. As a closed museum records were not accessible for research and the types of documents being preserved and the reasons for their preservation were extraordinarily haphazard. A number of discussions with the force’s records management department failed to change this; they – as with most police forces – adhered to guidance set out in the Management of Police Information (MoPI) which skimmed over the complex issue of archiving.

My time as the curator of this museum inspired my subsequent PhD thesis which employed the murder file as an exemplar to explore the often strange life cycles of regional police force records and the crucial roles of culture and memory (rather than any protocols) in determining what was eventually preserved. As I wrote I often stumbled down research rabbit holes: some I quickly climbed out of and skirted around, but one I was drawn into and continue to return to is the ongoing argument for making police records more accessible — not only for the growing discipline of policing history, but for the increasingly important dual requirements of accountability and transparency. Like government departments, police forces are publicly-funded, highly public facing organisations and upholders of the law who need to be able to clearly demonstrate principles such as integrity, accountability, openness and honesty — principles laid down in The seven principles of public life (or the Nolan principles). It’s difficult to understand how this can be achieved without access to records.

West Midlands Police – Hillsborough material search (Image in the public domain)

The Open University History Department (where I’m now a visiting fellow and consultant) has, for a number of years, been interested in the preservation of policing records. Part of the work of their Centre for the history of crime, policing and justice has been to participate in initiatives to press for the inclusion of police forces in the Public Records Act, a cause which was catapulted to the fore in the aftermath of the Hillsborough stadium disaster of 1989. Both the Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel and the later report by Bishop James Jones recommended either inclusion of police records in the Public Records Act, or some other ‘appropriate solution,’ to ensure greater consistency and regulation around what police records were selected for preservation (and not the haphazard situation I had encountered).

The report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, 2012, and Recommendation 2

The patronising disposition of unaccountable power, 2017, and Point of Learning 24

Unlike Scotland, who not only revised their equivalent Public Records Act in 2011, but included Police Scotland in the new Act, or the Police Service of Northern Ireland who were included in the Northern Ireland version of the Public Records Act, in England and Wales there seems to be little appetite for such a move and it is increasingly unlikely that police records will become public records. Generally Hillsborough, as with many high profile disasters, has been the catalyst for campaigns towards greater accountability and this has included the drafting of the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill sponsored in 2017 by Andy Burnham — a Bill which has, as yet, to be passed by the current government (2022).

Conversely, returning to Bishop James Jones’ alternative ‘appropriate solution,’ positive moves have been made in drafting a new statutory code to replace MoPI which contains significantly more guidance (and therefore control) around the long-term preservation of police records. In terms of my personal research, I’d be interested to know how this will affect the future collection of the large tranches of records I identified above as informal deposits — I suspect they will dry up completely. Through collaborative research at the Open University, mapping of the current levels and status of police records held by county and city record offices has begun. Gathering such baseline data will enable us to assess whether the code will effectively increase the archiving of police records and the ability to access those records for any type of research — whether historical, journalistic, for policy implementation or public inquiries. Such information will contribute to wider and current debates around accountability, openness and integrity of all public-facing, publicly funded bodies and the symbiosis between this and the preservation of, and access to, records.

The preservation of records and the writing of police histories

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A number of histories of UK police forces begin right at the beginning of policing with rich information about parish constabularies, early reform and the establishment of the Metropolitan Police. For some, by the chronological ending of the book, information tends to get thinner or peter out. The reasons for this could be three-fold. First, that regional force histories were often written at the point of amalgamations instigated by either the 1964 Police Act or the 1972 Local Government Act, in order to preserve a perceived loss of history. Or they may have been written to mark other major landmark events such as force centenaries many of which occurred in the mid-20th century. Secondly, this, in turn, indirectly influenced the chronology of national histories – for example, T.A. Critchley acknowledges that he made use of ‘forty or so’ local police force histories.[1] The third reason feeds into a reliance on secondary material (published books) which may indicate a lack of primary material (original records). Again this is particularly pertinent for regional forces whose records have never been incorporated into the Public Records Act and consequently were less protected.

This, then, really forms the crux of my blog: whether writing about police history, history of crime, or wider criminal justice history, and whether under the umbrella of academia or personal research, it all relies on the ability to access primary material held in record offices or by police force museums. I’ve written about this now on a number of occasions, most notably in my PhD thesis, but I’ll continue to beat the drum because here in 2021 I feel there is an under-represented concern about the health of historical writing and the ability to be able to create a balanced, current and relevant history of policing in the UK. This blog, then, will set out to explore these challenges.

Recognition by police forces that their records have research and historical value

The Amazon page for The English Police by Clive Emsley provides a clue to the first of these challenges in describing the book as: “A comprehensive history of policing from the eighteenth century onwards, which draws on largely unused police archives ….”[2] Professor Emsley, as the doyen of policing history, undoubtedly had the necessary contacts to access those largely unused police archives. He also had insider knowledge in that in 1989 he and Dr Ian Bridgeman published their comprehensive survey of archival material held by police forces in force museums, archives, cupboards, store rooms or in offices at headquarters.

One outcome of Bridgeman and Emsley’s survey was L.A. Waters’ Towards a records management policy for provincial forces in England and Wales which was published by the Police History Society in 1992 and circulated to all UK police forces.[3] It was hoped this would at least draw attention to the plight of many of the records identified by Bridgeman and Emsley and provide a simple guide to assist forces in recognising and archiving valuable historical material. In 2003, Emsley and Dr Chris Williams sent out a survey to UK police forces in order to ascertain whether the guide had improved the situation. The responses to this survey identified one key problem which remains relevant today: only ten per cent of responding forces appreciated what sort of material was of future historic value with many archiving ‘a narrowly defined and static group of “historical” records.’[4]

The flow of records from police forces into the public domain

To an extent, Bridgeman and Emsley’s 1989 survey only told half the story because it didn’t touch on what police records were already sitting in the public domain in record offices. With finite funding and time and limited to just six record offices, my PhD research at least offered a glimpse of this missing narrative. By conducting surveys of online catalogues, corroborated with more direct contact with archivists, it showed that all six archives received large collections of policing records between the 1940s to 1980s. However, post 1980s there was a drop in all cases to near zero deposits being made by those same forces today. The surveys also revealed some important pointers around why police force records were entering the public domain:

Just over fifty per cent of the records currently held by archives could be described as ‘informal deposits’ in that they were presented to the record office by retired police officers, families of police officers, individual officers acting on their own initiative rather than any force agreed deposit.
Included in this were significant quantities from closing force museums;
Large quantities of records were deposited with record offices during periods of amalgamation as a result of closing station and department clear-outs, but also perhaps triggered by more emotional responses of removing material from the perceived subsuming force.
Much of the later material – post 1980 – tends to be of a more curated nature: annual reports, newsletters, photographs, histories of the force; this again reflects not only a lack of understanding around what is important to preserve, but insecurity around what can safely be preserved.
More recently some police forces have removed collections from their local record office – notably Cumbria and Surrey police forces.

The reasons for the demise of historical police records entering the public domain is complex: of course computerisation and a reduction in paperwork needs to be viewed as a major contributor. But legislation such as Freedom of Information and Data Protection (GDPR) and PACE have all led forces to apply additional layers of control over their records and to view them as ‘high risk.’

One clear contributor has been the Management of Police Information (MoPI) which by narrowly defining and closely adhering to the DPA, FOIA and other legislation and policing protocols, has overshadowed and neglected the historical importance of the UK police.

The future of policing histories

Writing history is a complex balance of processes which involves access to a good range of primary material and the ability to interpret the material that is presented: who selected it; why is it there; what are the voices that are not represented? The section above clearly illustrates that what is selected is often tempered by emotional responses or control. The intellectual landscape of deposits is changing: layers of acts and policies not only started to plug the leaking fifty per cent of records flowing unofficially out of police forces and into the public domain, but reassessed the remaining fifty per cent.

As a good news story to end on: with work from the Home Office, the College of Policing and a number of key advisors, MoPI is being redrafted as a new Code. Perhaps the long beating of the drum has finally been heard because it will now have a greater emphasis around archiving records which is hugely welcomed. However, there are two critical points to monitor: first will this create greater access to records for researchers – and without access there is no history? Second, if it does encourage forces to archive more material, what sort of material will be preserved? It takes skill and courage to select representational cross sections which tell the entire story and whether forces have the expertise or resources to do this only time will tell.

Notes and further reading:

There are some recent and great success stories of important policing collections being deposited with local record offices, for example, Northamptonshire and Devon & Cornwall and it is hoped this trend will continue in the light of the new code. I would also like to recognise all those force museums who often work in difficult circumstances and yet provide excellent research facilities.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council have recently launched a Heritage Portfolio with the aim of supporting and protecting policing heritage

Bridgeman, Ian and Clive Emsley, A guide to the archives of the police forces of England and Wales (The Police History Society, 1989) (available here)

Sutton-Vane, Angela (2021) Investigating the murder file: A biographical analysis of creation, survival and impact (PhD thesis: The Open University) (available here)

Willlams, C.A. (ed) Giving the past a future: Preserving the heritage of the UK’s criminal justice system (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 2004)

[1] For example Critchley cites histories of Swansea, Anglesey, Kent, Leeds and Cheshire Constabularies. T.A. Critchley, A history of police in England and Wales: 900-1966 (London: Constable & Co. Ltd, 1967), pp.xviii-xix

[2] Emsley, Clive, The English police: A political and social history (Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman, 1996)

[3] Waters, L.A. Towards a records management policy for provincial forces in England and Wales (Police History Society, 1992) (available from the Police History Society)

[4] Williams, Chris A. and Clive Emsley, Police records archiving policy in Great Britain: interim report, The International Centre for the History of Crime, Policing and Justice (Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2003)

Images: Header image: Metal boxes on the shelves of the AySA archives (image in the public domain); File: East Sussex Record Office, R v Field and Gray, 1920, SPA 10/51/1; Graph: showing opening and closing dates of police records held at Cheshire Archives & Local Studies, created by Angie Sutton-Vane.

The Jack the Ripper Museum and thoughts around “Ripperology”

Souvenirs from the Jack the Ripper Museum; image taken from museum website at: http://www.jacktherippermuseum.com/

I have been following the debate around the opening of the new Jack the Ripper Museum at 12 Cable Street, London both on the Museum Association’s LinkedIn pages, and also via the press who have interviewed irate support groups and local communities. Yet I can’t help reflecting that the man at the root of it all – Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe – will be all too familiar with the fact that “bad publicity is good publicity”; his new venture has certainly hit the headlines in a way which would have otherwise cost a fortune to organise, and this morning the website viewing figures were at 17,973. If he can weather this big storm (and I understand the opening of the museum has been delayed) he may well have a viable business to take forward.

*Institute for Dark Tourism Research at UCLAN; clipping from: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/research/explore/groups/institute_for_dark_tourism_research.php*

So I consider, as I sit at my desk on this rainy Tuesday morning, whether some of this public outcry is around the discomfort of admitting that “Ripperology” is big money – a fact which has surely not gone over Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe’s head. Not far from the new museum Jack the Ripper Tours advertise their latest technology: “the gruesome tale of Jack the Ripper explodes for the first time into the 21st century … WITH RIPPER-VISION“. 12 Cable Street was marketed at £500,000 as an excellent development opportunity. Even with a total boycott from the local community and world of museums, at £12.00 entry fee and the online Ripper shop they may achieve a healthy profit by targeting the niche dark tourism sites and the curious tourists who crave a London of pea soup fogs and Sherlock Holmes murders. And who am I to point a finger here – all heritage attractions are now chained to “sustainability” and business planning. In academia dark tourism and histories have been widely researched, but where academics may venture in, museums or heritage attractions need to tread a fine line between “good” and “bad” taste and address the hard to define issues of decency, respect and ethics. Indeed, Paul Mullins comments in his post on Archaeology and Material Culture website that “the Jack the Ripper Museum is firmly situated in this ambiguous tension between measured museum scholarship and tourist trap sensationalism”.

*City of London Police Museum; screen clipping from: http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/about-us/history/museum/Pages/default.aspx*

Having worked as a curator for a police museum for over 10 years, acted as Arts Council England mentor for another police museum, as well as currently sitting on the committee of the Crime and Punishment Collections Network and researching an AHRC-funded PhD examining police collections, I constantly skirt around the boundaries of dark tourism and contested histories. I am used to the fact that murder creates huge interest, whether from the salacious, the writers and readers of true crime or the historians of criminology; and I am equally aware of the sensitivities and ethics of holding artefacts and files which record sudden deaths in violent and often unexplained circumstances, in respecting the voices of the dead and, for more recent murder cases, the wishes of the families. Often police files, forensic evidence and morgue photographs are all that the victims’ families have left. Murder wreaks havoc through families for generations and I have occasionally had to work with relatives or descendants trying to piece together the guilt, the sorrow and the silence. Police, Prison and Court Museums are dotted around the country displaying artefacts and historic archives for the organisations they represent. Indeed 30 minutes walk away is the City of London Police Museum which holds its own collection relating to Jack the Ripper including photographs and information about the investigation and also – though much less publicised – the Houndsditch Murders of 1910 which led to the Siege of Sidney Street (there is a post about it on The History Student’s blog). You won’t find portrayals of the dripping blood of women at this modest museum because it’s all to do with professionalism and public money.

It seems that this year is the year of criminal heritage. The fantastic Forensics exhibition at the Wellcome Collection was, I felt, a triumph in the public examination of the science of solving murders. They certainly recognised and commemorated the lost lives with an important part of the exhibition devoted to artists’ interpretations of crime scenes as sites of memory. It cannot have gone unnoticed that the Museum of London will also be venturing into the world of dark histories when they host the first public viewing of the “Black Museum” from New Scotland Yard – a collection I have been privileged to visit on a number of occasions. And this will indeed be a huge challenge because its very inaccessibility and nickname of the “Black Museum” (in that it was never intended for public view but as a training resource for detectives and officers) has created an aura of notoriety – below are some excerpts from the exhibition website:

“Giving voice to the real people – victims, perpetrators and police officers – behind these objects we’ll explore the impact of crime, personalising what is so often depersonalised. Confronting how, as a society, we respond when normality is shattered and lives are torn apart, we’ll also be forced to question our enduring fascination with this hidden collection and its stories”

and

“The exhibition is designed for an adult audience. It includes: objects, films and photographs relating to real criminal cases. These include cases of violence, murder and terrorism, as well as smaller exhibits on abortion, drugs (including drugs paraphernalia) and capital punishment. The objects are largely evidence from the cases and are directly linked to and were used in the crimes or their investigation. The films are mainly footage of press reporting of the cases. Examples of weapons, including firearms, knives and concealed and home-made weapons”

With first hand experience of interpreting police collections, I believe the Museum of London will pull this off. They have access to the necessary expertise and resources, as well as a wealth of experience in displaying archaeological remains and burial sites.

Google Maps - street view; the new museum under wraps earlier this year; screen clipping from: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.51084,-0.0678111,3a,75y,229.93h,87.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIjx59laXnnnSY5y4rGtR1Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 — Google Maps – street view; the new museum under wraps earlier this year; screen clipping from: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.51084,-0.0678111,3a,75y,229.93h,87.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIjx59laXnnnSY5y4rGtR1Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

So how has someone with Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe’s pedigree apparently got it so wrong? Especially as it seems (according to an article in The Londonist who interviewed him on 31st July 2015) he was a Governor at the Museum of London from 2005 to 2013, Chairman of the Museum of London Docklands from 2006 to 2009 and former Head of Diversity and Inclusion for Google in the UK, Middle East and Africa. In addition (again according to The Londonist) Dr Cathy Ross, author and honorary research fellow at The Museum of London, acted as curatorial consultant and wrote a guide book. There seems to be a chronic lack of transparency and like some dark magician Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe appears to have duped his entire audience into believing this was going to be a museum for women’s history and no-one was any the wiser until the scaffolding and hoardings were taken down to reveal all. Building Design Online interviewed Andrew Waugh of Waugh Thistle Architects who were commissioned by Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe to undertake the complex task of turning the narrow and cramped town house at 12 Cable Street into a fully functioning museum. Mr Waugh is another individual who feels duped over the project and that he wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole had he known the eventual outcomes. He described how he was persuaded that the project had no money: “this was a real heart-felt project. It is incredibly important to celebrate women in politics in the East End. We really ran with it … we did it at a bargain-basement fee …. we submitted it for planning and never heard another thing … when we heard it was going to be turned into a Jack the Ripper Museum we contacted the owner but got nothing back, we heard nothing.” And so the façade adorns Cable Street complete with dripping blood, skull-and-cross-bones and fake English Heritage blue plaques commemorating suspected culprit George Chapman and the fourth victim, Elizabeth Stride. A rushed retrospective planning consent application (see the image at the bottom of this page) to make good and appease his critics now includes signage for “Jack the Ripper Museum and the History of Women in the East End” – how can the two even sit side by side? And so Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe digs himself yet deeper into this tangled, duplicitous and contradictory venture.

*Jack the Ripper Tours; image of website from: http://www.thejacktherippertour.com/*

He may well have been inspired by The Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker Street; a strange phenomenon in that many visitors truly believe it is a real place – a 3-dimensional site where fantasy is acted out. And this must also be a relevant and critical concern for any serious curator of The Jack the Ripper Museum. As has been pointed out by so many, it isn’t a ripping murder mystery but a grim sequence of events relating to deaths, women’s rights, poverty, violence and urban decay which sliced through the community at the time and continues to slice through the contemporary, rapidly evolving communities who are keen to celebrate all aspects of their rich heritage and contested histories “beyond” Jack the Ripper. It does seem, according to the media at least, that there is not just anger, but also a real tiredness around the relentless exploitation of this part of London; for example, The Guardian’s “How the Jack the Ripper industry distorts London’s East End” and the Independent’s “Are Jack the Ripper tours blighting London?“. I suspect much of this has to do with the rapid gentrification of these areas and that Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe’s venture is simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. As more savvy and settled middle-class communities move in and replace the traditionally transient populations there will be more and more raised voices about the environment in which they live.

My final thoughts before I close this post are – I just can’t help feeling, like any good trick, that there must have been more going on behind the scenes than certainly I am led to believe. Surely any heritage project which involves a number of interested parties should be allowing access not only to the physical site but to the changing vision – because visions are amorphous by their nature. And with this in mind, I would like to know whether the press, or anyone, has been given a private viewing of the completed interior so that we can all at least make an informed judgement about the “book” rather than just the “cover”. It makes me wonder whether Dr Cathy Ross has made a valiant attempt to interpret a poisoned chalice of a project, and the disastrous facade was left to the whims of Mr Palmer-Edgecumbe.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I enjoyed writing it – I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please comment, share or like.

Some further reading and useful sites:
Foley, M. and Lennon, J. (2001) Dark Tourism, Cengage Learning,
Walkowitz, D. and Knauer, L.M. (eds.) (2009) Contested Histories in Public Space: Memory, Race, and Nation, Duke University Press
Williams, C. (ed.) (2004) Giving the Past a Future: Preserving the Heritage of the UK’s Criminal Justice System, Francis Boutle: London
Our Criminal Past at: http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/ourcriminalpast/
The Crime and Punishment Collections Network (CaP) at: https://capcollections.wordpress.com/
Challenging History Network at: https://challenginghistorynetwork.wordpress.com/
SOLON at: http://www.pbs.plymouth.ac.uk/solon/
The Open University: History from Police Archives at: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/history-from-police-archives/welcome.html
The Police History Society at: http://www.policehistorysociety.co.uk/

Tag: history

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This is the story of a little known house with a big and forgotten history in the North of Wales.

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This is my blog on the Campaign for Records website which was published in May 2022

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Like this:

Recognition by police forces that their records have research and historical value

The flow of records from police forces into the public domain

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