What's it all about?

The Story of Bideford Black project was initiated in 2012 by local artist Peter Ward with The Burton Art Gallery & Museum to uncover, gather and present fresh stories and artefacts about this locally important historic industry through interviews with specialists on the subject and a series of events and workshops. It has been funded by a the Heritage Lottery Fund All Our Stories grant and by a generous donation from The Friends of the Burton Gallery. Ultimately it will  provide a new permanent interactive display and online archive for the Museum to preserve memories of the industry for future generations.

(Above Images courtesy P Ward and the Ackland and Edwards Archive)

The project may be divided into two parts - firstly a period of research, including special events, press releases and interviews, to gather and collate information, memories, images and artefacts from local residents, specialists and archives. These stories will then be brought together and shared with local school children to produce illustrations using BIDEFORD BLACK itself for the final display and online archive, as well as a specially produced Teachers Pack and exhibition to celebrate the unveiling of the new display in October 2013.

If you have any information, memories or artefacts that you would like to share with the project, to know more or would simply like to get involved please contact us on bidefordblackblog@gmail.co.uk, visit the gallery or telephone on 01237 471455. We look forward to hearing from you soon...

Copyright

In the making of this blog and throughout the project every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain permission for the use of copyright material. The Burton Art Gallery and Museum and Torridge District Council apologise if there are any errors or omissions in the acknowledgements and would be grateful, if notified of any corrections, to them incorporate in future edits of this blog.