
The North and South Poles may seem millions of miles away from Edgbaston, but Winterbourne can boast several connections to polar exploration and research. As we’re now in the depths of winter, it seemed an appropriate time to find out more and do some digging in the comfort of the archives! After it came into

Collections volunteer Tony Bucknall reveals how online resources can shed light on the lives of individuals. Lois Nettlefold was John and Margaret Nettlefold’s sixth child. She led an interesting life, and I’ve chosen to focus on Lois to illustrate the range of resources that are available when exploring the lives of individuals. My starting

If you visit a fancy restaurant nowadays you may well get a sprinkling of flower petals on your food as ‘decoration’ but flowers are not a normal staple of the modern larder. However, long before the supermarkets sold bags of mixed salad, the use of flowers, picked from the garden or wayside was a common

Winterbourne’s Collections Officer, Henrietta, has been celebrating our 10th anniversary and keeping us amused by recreating some pictures on display around the house. These recreations are a bit different from what you might normally expect as they are done utilising Hen’s own personal collection…Barbie dolls! Greatly enjoyed by the team here at Winterbourne we had

Last month we looked at the origins of the great Spring Clean and the invention of the domestic vacuum cleaner. This piece of kit undoubtedly made life much easier, and homes much cleaner, as it evolved throughout the 20th century to the lightweight, dust-busting wands we use today. However, the Spring Clean has always been