A Visit to Louth

You know how it is? You travel miles and miles to visit all sorts of places of interest, and never get to the ones actually on your doorstep. Joe and I went to visit the museum in Louth today - something we have been planning literally for years. It's a nice little museum, recently refurbished, with some very good displays.

I left my car for two hours in the Co-op carpark while I visited a museum, but I forgot to get my parking money back when I got the little bit of shopping I needed to be able to get some cash back in order to get coffee and a scone later - as well, of course, as qualifying me to get my parking money back.

It took about an hour to see the three-and-a-bit galleries. The first shows a copy of Brown's panorama of Louth in the early 19th century - the original in the town hall has recently been restored. It is an amazingly detailed piece of work showing the view east from the church spire. North-east it goes to Grimsby and across the Humber to Spurn Point, and south-east to Boston and the Wash. All along the coast is an amazing number of windmills - many, I suspect, for pumping rather than grinding corn. Cleethorpes shows as a distinct hill (Mag's Highland) on the flatlands of the coast, while many nearer villages are hidden in the slopes of the Wolds. Close to the detail of the houses and gardens - many still perfectly recognisible - is quite wonderfully detailed reminding us of what a hidden treasure Louth is - an historic town, beautifully kept with its street pattern and old buildings, but not artificially preserved in some sort of theme-park aspic to the detriment of the majority of inhabitants not engaged in tourism. Comparing the pictures below with that on Google Earth is a fascinating exercise.

I have posted these two pictures (both, like the one of the museum, 'borrowed' from the Museum website) the upper one to give some idea of the scale of the Panorama, and the latter to give some idea of the detail. I did have my camera with me, but a) I hadn't obtained permission to take photographes inside and b) once outside I disovered that my battery was flat.

Upstairs there was a small temporary display by junior archaeologists who have photographed signs (mainly historic) around the town and turned them into a town trail - an excellent piece of work which other museums and schools could well adapt for their own use. The children who did it are to be congratulated.

The second permanent gallery was mainly the geology, prehistory and history of the Wolds with well chosen objects displayed with clarity. Personally I can do without stuffed animals, but I do realise that the natural history of an area does need to be shown and that these long-dead creatures are probably the clearest way to do so.

The final gallery shows the industry and trades of Louth with a mezzanine in the centre showing very graphically the extent of and devastation caused by the Louth Flood of 1920 which claimed 23 lives.

After this we went for an early tea - well, coffee and home-made scones actually - at Perkins Pantry which has been a favourite of ours for some time and has recently won yet another Taste of Lincolnshire award. The proprietrix is Sue Locking whose husband Malcolm is very keen on family history and 'has gone back as far as records will take him'. I couldn't find them in the index on Liz's family history pages, but Liz tells me that she knows him and that he has gone back even further in his researches into his entirely unrelated family than she has managed. I also know about their late cat 'Perkin' after whom the cafe is named.

I came back to the car park to discover that I had a flat tyre - a small flint in the side, so I had to buy a whole new tyre!!! Of course, by the time I had got out my spare wheel it was raining hard. A nice man came to my aid and went home to fetch his electric pump by which time the rain had turned to hail and continued falling hard all the while he blew up my tyre so that I coulget to the tyre place; meanwhile I threw my spare tyre and jack back into the boot.

Where was Joe in all this you ask? Why wasn't he, a strong young man, helping his aunt in her time of need? Well he had gone to have a quick look round the church while I fetched the car to pick him up again - my car park time being close to expiry - and by now he was getting rather anxious waiting.

Anyway, at last I picked him up and we drove to the industrial estate, found Mr. Tyre - recommended by my rescuer - and got the tyre replaced.

I was so upset that I had to buy a pair of shoes to cheer me up! But I really did need them and I found them in the children's department so they were nice and cheap.