The Collection

 

	At the heart of the Orford Museum collection is the paraphernalia associated with the ancient borough of Orford.  The charters, records, regalia, robes, constables' staffs, town stocks and many other items, all now the property of the New Orford Town Trust and mostly in the care of the Orford Museum Trust, form a unique collection. Some items are deposited in the Suffolk Record Office at Ipswich and the valuable silver is in the bank, but pictures or copies of them and a number of less precious, but no less interesting, things form one section of the museum display which opened in 2005 in Orford Castle.
James Coe, Orford's  first mayor		Emily Rope's drawing of arches in Orford Castle

	An important part of the Museum is the excellent and ever-growing collection of old prints and photographs.  Images of the castle and church predominate, but there are many views of the streets and buildings in the village, some remarkably unchanged to this day.
The Eastern Counties Bus in the Market Place  1924

 

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of occupation long pre-dating the building of the castle by King Henry II in the twelfth century. Flint implements, Roman finds and Anglo-Saxon objects all point to a long period of human habitation. Local metal detectorists regularly discover a great variety of coins, seals, buckles, pieces of harness etc in the fields around the village. All their finds are recorded under the Portable Antiquities Scheme and some have been lent or donated to the Museum.

The Roman cremation urns found in Orford

Orford's position in the centre of the geologically unique area of the United Kingdom where there are deposits of Coralline crag means that there are fossils and geological specimens in the collection.

From the eighteenth century through to the beginning of the twentieth century, Orford had more of the character of an estate village, situated as it was in the farming and sporting Sudbourne Estate, owned for most of that period by the Marquises of Hertford. The Museum collects and displays historic material relating to the whole area of the estate (roughly between the Butley River and the River Alde and including, as well as Orford with Orfordness, Gedgrave and Havergate Island, the villages of Sudbourne, Chillesford and Iken)

Sudbourne Hall (now demolished)

	During the nineteenth century the Marquises of Hertford partially furnished some rooms in Orford Castle. A  pen and ink drawing by Emily Rope of 1888 shows the fireplace of the Great Chamber where the new Orford Museum will be located. Some of the ornamental weapons and the andirons are still in the collection.
Emily Rope's drawing of the fireplace in Orford Castle

Proximity to the sea has also influenced Orford. Fishing and the coastal trade have been hugely important to the village. The Museum has a number of items relating to those activities and to the important Orfordness lighthouse.
	Orford Quay  c.1900

	The twentieth century saw the military use of Orfordness as an early airfield, then as the home of experimental radar and, after the Second World War, as an atomic weapons research establishment. Weapons testing was conducted there right until the 1980s.
One of the strange shaped laboratories, nicknamed, 'Pagodas' (Picture by kind permission of Keith Simmonds)

For details of the latest acquisitions, see the News page.

Orfordness is now owned by the National Trust, Orford castle is in the care of English Heritage and Havergate Island is an RSPB reserve.