rusty the iron age dog mascotWeston Museum’s Rusty Club will soon be creating their own exciting exhibition featuring work and images created by the club members themselves on the theme of ‘Hidden Histories’.

‘Rusty Club’ is our name for our own Young Archaeologist Club at Weston Museum and we have recently had some exciting news from our parent organisation the Young Archaeologists Club (YAC), which is part of the Council for British Archaeology. YAC have been working with the Shout Out Loud Project, English Heritage’s flagship youth engagement project funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund, to provide awards of up to £1000, as part of a new scheme called From Ordinary to Extraordinary. These awards will enable clubs to undertake a range of different projects exploring untold or forgotten histories with young people taking the lead. Rusty Club were very pleased to have been awarded one of these awards.

Club leader, Katherine Bell, said that ‘the club members always have great ideas and insights about history so we’re really looking forward to seeing what work they present. We’re also really grateful to our funders for making it possible to display the members work in a really professional way, with quality printing and framing to really show it off to museum visitors’.

Rusty Club have begun their work exploring the theme of ‘Hidden Histories’ by thinking about different historical sites across the country that either aren’t easily accessible or are not immediately visible, such as cave systems, underground passages, hidden rooms and cathedral ceilings. They also explored some mystery objects and investigated the changing past uses of the museum building itself.

The club members will now go on to explore how exhibitions are made with the aim of having a central part in gathering and displaying their own content for their exhibition. This exhibition is planned to be displayed in the museum in February 2022 and be free for everyone to come along and have a look at the work and images curated by the Young Archaeologists’ Club members.

Rusty Club is open to all young explorers aged 8-16 who love archaeology and history. The club meets on the first Saturday of each month and there are currently a few open spaces for new members. To find out more, anybody interested can head to the Rusty Club page.

For further information about this story please contact the museum team on 01934 621028 or email to Katherine.bell@wsm-tc.gov.uk

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Funded by From Ordinary to Extraordinary, a Shout Out Loud initiative in partnership with Young Archaeologists’ club, to support grassroots, youth focussed heritage projects. Shout Out Loud is a Kick the Dust project funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund.