Heritage Centre

Stone Town Council’s Heritage Centre is preparing to tell the history of Stone.

Can you help?

We would be grateful to those people of Stone who could offer an item for loan so that we may display them for the benefit of the community and beyond. 

We are looking for items to be displayed that are related to the following:

Stone before Stone, the story of Anglo-Saxon Stone and surrounding areas. There are many local Anglo-Saxon place names: Chebsey, Eccleshall, Walton, and Moddershall among them. 

Items of interest include:      

• Maps of Anglo-Saxon Stone
• Figures representing Anglo-Saxon people
• Ceramic objects representing Anglo-Saxon period
• Replicas of Anglo-Saxon jewellery, broaches, armour, coins

Medieval Stone, from Walton’s mentioning in the Domesday Book in 1086 to William Crompton’s purchase of Stone Park in 1538.

Items of interest include:

• Maps and plans of Mediaeval Stone
• Replica mediaeval coins, religious relics, religious figures.

Communications, the coach road, canal and the railway mean so much to the story of Stone. 

Items of interest include:

• Canal, railway and horse grooming tools with a direct and identifiable relation with Stone.
• Documents relating to invoices, orders submitted, wages paid.
• Canal and railway advertising brochures, posters, leaflets, timetables.
• Road, rail and canal maps and plans.

Keeping Order, from pillories, stocks, magistrates court, police stations, councils, Stone Territorials, and the American airmen billeted at Yarnfield during World War II, all helped maintain order.

Items of interest include:

• Stone police uniforms and associated items, e.g. whistles, notebooks, truncheons, badges, numbers.
• Stone Territorial memorabilia, uniform badges, ancillary uniform items, e.g. hats, bags, identification papers.

Trade and Industry, brewing industry, shoe making, flour mills, flint mills, glass instrument making, local shops provided jobs and services.

Items of interest include:

• Glass making instruments.
• Brewing related memorabilia, brewers’ tools, coopers’ tools.
• Local shop signs, documents e.g. invoices, receipts.

Religion, St. Dominic’s Church, St. Michael and St. Wulfad’s Church, Christ Church, St, John’s Church, St. Saviour’s Church support the community.

Items of interest include:

• Plans of the various churches within Stone.
• Ephemera from church events, e.g. leaflets, church order of service, community event posters/leaflets.
• Artefacts created for the church, e.g. embroidered items etc.
• Sunday school certificates and prizes.

Please don’t be offended if sometimes we are unable to take offered items.

Reasons we may not accept an item include:

• There is not an easily identifiable connection to the local area
• We couldn’t show or care for an item due to its nature or to poor condition
• Human remains
• Biological and geological material
• Archaeological material
• Spoliation (items that are considered to have been obtained by an act of theft or other deprivation which was committed during the Nazi era, 1933 – 1945)

If you feel that you have something you can offer, please contact the Heritage Centre on 01785 594767 or email us on heritagecentre@stonetowncouncil.gov.uk

The Heritage Centre Manager will discuss your offer of a loan and where appropriate, arrange an appointment with you to present your item in person at the Centre.

Please do not send items to us through the post.  Any items left at the Heritage Centre without prior agreement and discussion with the Heritage Centre Manager will result in the item(s) being removed from the premises and either returned to their owner or disposed of in line with the Heritage Centre’s Collections Disposal Procedures.