Museum of British Folklore

I’ve been involved in getting married over the last week and have consequently failed to post anything. But once the dust had settled over the weekend I found myself out in the Chilterns with a hot sun above and the whirling spicy aromas of the English spring on the breeze. It was a good chance to reconnect with the countryside and customs of the old villages before the merry month of May begins and it got me thinking about Simon Costin’s Museum of British Folklore.

The Museum of British Folklore doesn’t yet have a permanent physical home (other than it’s website and splendid event caravan) but I feel very encouraged by the way that a museum like this can flourish on both a curatorial and an archival level purely in the digital realm. What impresses me the most is that Simon Costin who runs the museum has incredible enthusiasm for his subject and a shoulders a clear set of motives and mechanisms for establishing the museum, most of which are based on years of personal research and a desire to celebrate the continued understanding of our rich and unique local folklore. For me, his vision for future of the museum draws on all the right sources and he has made some interesting allies already in form of illustrator Jonny Hannah and the Gentle Author of Spitalfields Life.

Head over to the site and see the journal/news area to see how the work has been progressing on establishing the museum. I thoroughly recommend supporting the cause – it is all too apparent to me that some of the incredible folk nuances and customs that constitute our complex and ever evolving social fabric here are more than vulnerable in today’s society. I think the museum will do a cracking job of researching, preserving and honouring them.