Footprint gallery Jackfield exhibition

Shropshire Star

08/07/2024

Footprint gallery Jackfield exhibition.

Transcript

00:00Right, welcome to Footprint Gallery. This exhibition is about this local area, its history,

00:06its culture, its people. It includes Broseley and Jackfield and I'm going to show you around.

00:11Of course we've got work contributed by local children and by residents who brought in photographs.

00:20This is a project called Forging Ahead by the Shropshire Music Service that have worked

00:26with the three Jackfield schools, John Wilkinson, Broseley C.O.V. and Barrow and the children

00:35have produced some beautiful work based on the story of the Broseley Dragon which you'll

00:41see in a shot in a minute. The Broseley Dragon is an idea that came out of a design done

00:49at Colport at the China Works and they've adapted that. You've got work from all key

00:56stages so here's, I call them the little ones, but this is a dragon's nest. There's the dragon.

01:06This is a collaborative effort by the schools and then we've got Dragon's Eyes by John Wilkinson's

01:14school. These dragons were just hatched by the way. These are their eggs and I asked

01:21one little girl, were the dragons dangerous? She said no, these are going to be friendly

01:27dragons so that's okay. And then this is the work of Corbettdale Primary School. This is

01:37I think particularly interesting because they asked the children to describe their feelings

01:41about if they'd been on the ferry and one of the victims was the 28 people who died,

01:49adults and children, in 1799. And I think the children have really used their imagination.

01:58There's some beautiful poetry over here done at Corbettdale School and I think we're going

02:07to judge that. And then these are interesting because local people have brought in photographs.

02:13We've scanned and enlarged them and we've framed them and there's a lot of discussion

02:21about where these places are. There's the free bridge which is now a suspension bridge.

02:26That's old Jackfield. This doesn't exist anymore but you can see the Moores Craft Centre there.

02:34There's a lot of debate about where that is. I think it's the boat inn but I'm not convinced.

02:41And here, this is easy to locate because there you have Jackfield Church and that's about

02:47the 1950s. So we move around now to really interesting things here. Behind this building

02:55there used to be a clay mine. These clay women who were a ferocious mob would drop down in

03:02baskets. They used to collect the clay, put it in piles here and then it was sent to the

03:08brick factory to be made into bricks. This is where we are now. That's where we're filming

03:13from. And these look like school children doing some cultivation so that's quite interesting.

03:21And this is the sad bit. A colleague of ours, Bob Herrick, wants to focus on the disaster

03:31in 1779 and his idea is to produce a memorial to each of the people who died on that day.

03:42These photographs are all species that you can see if you walk from Jackfield Church,

03:52say to the Coalport China Works, you've got a chance of seeing these species. It's a really

04:01interesting area now in terms of natural history. This is Craven Dunhill. So the idea is to

04:09contrast Craven Dunhill, which had been working on decorative tiles for 150 years, to contrast

04:17what it was like in the 19th century and what it's like now. And these are quite precious,

04:25these items. This is why they're in a locked glass cabinet because some of these are very

04:31rare. And then we've got the then and now again. These were taken about a month ago

04:40of current workers using a lot of exactly the same techniques as people were doing

04:48in the artist's room, the mosaic worker's room and the press shop.

04:55And we sweep round now to an exhibition about the Red Church site. That's about half a mile

05:01from here. There's a dedicated group trying to improve this and develop it as a bit of

05:09a local nature reserve where people can go and sit and contemplate. And that's really it.

05:17Oh, we've got a lovely children's activity. Two visitors have just arrived, which is great.

05:24This is a children's activity. So I give them a tile. And here's Daisy, age 12.

05:31And she's coloured it in. And on Sunday, they can collect their work and take it home.

05:37And these are Year Two at Colwooddale. There's the names of all the children.

05:45One of them came in the other day to show his mum and dad this here, which I thought was lovely.

05:50He was really proud. He's in a proper gallery. And that's really what it's all about. So thank you.

Footprint gallery Jackfield exhibition

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