'The Stories of the Somme' exhibition at the Experience Barnsley Museum began 24th of August and runs up until 20th of November. Alongside their other Barnsley memorabilia, stories from the Battle of the Somme were presented with items, literature and memories of by-gone soldiers. Dotted around the museum were also garments created by Barnsley College Fashion students from their World War one project earlier this year which brought the theme more to life. The exhibition is definitely worth a visit as well as seeing all the other items within the museum.

Here's the photo journal of the visit.



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Yesterday I got invited to go and look at the Barnsley Archives which are based inside the Town Hall. The Archives are open to the public to view anytime, however if you are looking for something in particular, it's best to email in advanced and see what they have on the subject.

I went there to find out more about the Barnsley Co-Operative building and found some beautiful old photographs of it from the 50's and 60's, featuring some of their departments and shoppers.

However I also found out about a wonderful event that used to be held called the Barnsley Shopping Carnival. This type of event had already been held elsewhere and Barnsley wanted to join in too. It gathered all the independent shops throughout the town to make a week long carnival, featuring special deals, window display competitions and public competitions. Everyone worked together to attract new customers to the town and they produced a 'booklet', which was actually an entire book detailing all of the events, history of the town, advertisements and stories about certain shops.

I've got lots of pictures to share, keep an eye out on the blog!

In recent news, a beautiful Victorian building has gone up in flames in Barnsley. It's recent use was a nightclub and now under renovation to become a restaurant, but all has been wasted away to a large fire destroying it. Originally built in 1862 and was a Grade 2 listed building, it housed many different departments from butchery, pharmaceutical, tailoring and also drapery.

It's with great shame that this building has slowly deteriorated over the years and has now been engulfed in flames. We're going to take a look at it's fashion sided history through these beautiful old photos from the 60's and a memories video from Experience Barnsley. Photo Credit to the left: Yorkshire Post.




The Experience Barnsley Museum have been delving into this topic and created this wonderful video of people who used to be members of the Co-Operative and their memories.