Showtime: Great Yarmouth’s Circus Story

Time and Tide, 27 March – 31 October 2010

You may be familiar with Great Yarmouth’s maritime history, but did you know that it also has a long history as a circus town, and is home to a world-renowned circus building?

The first circus came to town in 1845, though the event is best remembered for tragedy. Nelson the Clown was performing a publicity stunt, sailing down the river Bure in a bathtub pulled by four geese, when the surge of the crowds gathered on the bridge caused it to collapse; 79 people, mainly children, were drowned.

Several circuses passed through the town throughout the 1800s, performing in wooden buildings constructed for the purpose, until in 1903 a permanent building was opened. The Hippodrome on St Georges Street was built for George Gilbert, who had turned to circus management after an injury meant he could no longer perform. The Hippodrome is still a working circus today, the only circus building in the UK to still be used for its intended purpose, and one of only four across the globe to feature a ring which can sink to be flooded for spectacular, water-based finales.

Showtime: Great Yarmouth ’s Circus Story at Time and Tide celebrates the town’s rich circus heritage. It features paintings, posters, props and costumes from two local collectors, as well as from the museum’s own collections. Peter Jay , who has run the Hippodrome since 1978 is lending props from his own backstage museum. The town is also home to Don Stacey, who over a lifetime of involvement with the industry, has amassed the largest private collection of circus memorabilia in the UK .

Also on display are a new series of paintings by Katherine Hamilton, based on a recent residency at the Hippodrome.

Showtime Events

Friday Talks Last Friday of the Month, 11.30am

Museums at Night Saturday 15 May, 6 – 10pm

Rollo’s Circus Skills Workshops Mondays 26 July – 30 August

Circus Sunday 8 August, 10am – 5pm

Admission: Monday – Sunday 10am – 5pm

Adults £4.50

Conc. £3.80

Young Person (4-16) £3.30

Time and Tide, Museum of Great Yarmouth Life, Blackfriars Road, Great Yarmouth, NR30 3BX01493 743930  www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk

Broadlanders art club exhibition

ALL ARE WELCOME .  Refreshments served.

Medieval Norfolk’s relationship with North Sea

‘Norfolk and its North Sea World in the Late Middle Ages’ will open at the Norfolk Record Office in Norwich on Tuesday (13 April). The exhibition tells the story of the county’s relationship with the North Sea and the countries bordering it, with items relating to international trade, exchange of ideas, naval affairs, defence and war on show.

Documents written in Latin, French, English, Dutch and Low German all feature in the exhibition and demonstrate that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – the period covered by the exhibition – Norfolk was a vital and significant link between England and the continent.

The exhibition is being held to coincide with a major international conference at the University of East Anglia, ‘East Anglia and its North Sea world’, which runs from Tuesday, 13 to Thursday, 15 April. The conference will include contributions from scholars working in Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, together with those based in the UK.

Trade and commerce with the Low Countries, Scandinavia and particularly with the German Hanse trade association are explained through numerous documents from King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth. For example, there are sumptuously decorated letters patent of Henry VI, issued in 1428, confirming Henry IV’s grant, made in 1404, of powers of self-government to English merchants in Prussia, Scandinavia and the Hanseatic regions.

Another important document is the Great Yarmouth customs account for 1379-80, which shows a port heaving with vessels from the Baltic, Germany and the Low Countries. The Yarmouth accounts are significant as being one of only three series of English local customs accounts which survive locally, and they are by far the most extensive and complete.

‘Norfolk and its North Sea World in the Late Middle Ages’ will open on Tuesday and run until Tuesday, 13 July at the Norfolk Record Office, located in the Archive Centre on the County Hall site in Norwich. Admission to the exhibition and centre is free, for more information and centre opening hours, visit www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk.

A Feast of Tudor Food

Renewal

AN OPEN EXHIBITION FOR NORFOLK AND WAVENEY ARTISTS

GREAT YARMOUTH LIBRARY GALLERY, 12TH APRIL- 24TH APRIL 2010

 The exhibition features 15 artists showing 23 works in painting, drawing, prints and sculpture. All artists are based in the Norfolk and Waveney area and were asked to interpret the theme of ‘Renewal’. They were selected by a panel of judges, and all works are for sale. The exhibition runs from Monday 12th April to Saturday 24th. 10am to 5pm.

Renewal Artists:

Jamie Andrews- Harry Baker- Sarah Caputo- Katarzyna Coleman- Jacqui Fenn- Colin Giles- Chris Hann- Bridget Heriz- Paul Howard-Clare Johnson- Julia O’Leary- Neslihan Nebioglu- Sandra Rowney- Paul Zawadzki.