Museum objects Archives - Crawley Museum

Old Toll House, Northgate

The Old Toll House in Northgate was near the entrance to what is now Ifield Drive, at the junction with the High Street. As well as a photograph of it, we’ve recently been donated a watercolor painting, presumably based on the photo. There is no artist’s name on the painting.

According to Peter Gwynne’s book ‘A History of Crawley’ (1990) the photograph was taken around 1900, shortly before its demolition. The word ‘Crawley’ wasn’t written on the building itself, but was written on the photograph by the printer. We’d love to know who the girls in the photograph are – if you can help us, please let us know?

Sepia photograph of Northgate Toll House, with two girls standing outside. The word 'Crawley' appears on the roof of the house. Handwriting at the bottom of the photograph reads 'The Old Toll House. A relic of Crawley.' — The handwriting on the bottom of this photograph reads ‘The Old Toll Gate. A relic of Crawley.’

Watercolour painting of the old toll house.

Crawley’s Collections Revealed – label an object!

As part of our Crawley’s Collections Revealed project (funded by Arts Council England), we’re meant to be running face to face sessions with people, looking at objects and writing labels.

Obviously we can’t do the face to face bit right now, but we can still show you objects and ask you to tell us what you’d put on a label.

It can be something factual, something the object makes you think of or remember, or even a drawing or poem. It’s up to you.

This week’s object is a milk bottle. Apparently R.G. Law was known as ‘The Midnight Milkman’ because of his erratic delivery times!

Let us know in the comments what you’d put on a label for this object?

Milk bottle

(The writing on the bottle reads: “This bottle and milk is the property of R.G. Law, 16 Brighton Road, Crawley. Stolen if delivered by another dairyman.”)

Community / Crawley Memories / Crawley Museum / Crawley's Collections Revealed / Museum objects - 03/23/2020

Candomblé ferramenta display

Image of four metal objects: double headed axe with lightning bolts; jewelled cutlass; three tridents on stand; small copper figure.

Have you been in to see our loan from the Horniman Museum yet?

Until 15th December, upstairs in our Link Gallery we have a display case with four Candomblé ferramenta.

“Ferramenta” or ‘tools’ are used in the religion of Candomblé. Each ferramenta represents a particular Orisha – a spirit or deity from the large Candomblé pantheon. Candomblé developed from the religions of enslaved African people from the 17th to late 19th century, in the Bahia region of Brazil.

West African, particularly Yoruba, religious understandings merged with other African and Indigenous American beliefs as well as Catholicism to produce a distinctive Afro-Brazilian religion which, through music and dance celebrates life and its continuance.

These four ferramenta were collected in 1998 as part of fieldwork undertaken in Brazil by Keith Nicklin, former Keeper of Ethnography at the Horniman Museum and Gardens.

They are on loan to us from the Horniman Museum and Gardens in Forest Hill, London as part of its Object in Focus loans programme. Object in Focus gives access to the Horniman’s collections by offering objects on short term loan.

Crawley Museum / Display / Museum objects - 08/08/2019

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