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The Ancient Cathedral City of Brechin is in Angus, Scotland.

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 CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 2006

The Friends have had a successful year continuing current activity and also developing new projects. The membership is 63 including a member from Australia. The first stage of the Townscape Heritage Initiative was successful and the second stage application has held their first public consultation meeting. We very much hope that this will be successful because it will provide funds to fully restore the Town House. One of Angus Council's architects has started to prepare more detailed, costed drawings for the full restoration of the Town House.

We held two lectures evenings during the past year. We decided to work in partnership with the Civic Trust for this activity. In October, Mr Peter Grace gave an excellent  talk on Robert Watson -Watt - the radar man,  with video and models of the radio towers. This was followed by George Mitchell who talked of his work experience in a jute factory. In April, John Smart talked about the work of the weaver with reference to Smarts factory in Brechin. He was followed by Rachel Benvie who spoke about Archeology inAngus with slides. We were very encouraged by the attendances to these events. The initial part of the oral history project was completed and 6 compact discs werehanded over to the Town House Museum. Subjects include, social history 1920s to 1960s, farming 1930s-1960s, wartime and post-war memories. Following on the success of this project we decided to undertake a larger oral history project and we have applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund. The project will preserve details of domestic and working lifin the Brechin area. The memories will be stored on digital discs and will be freely available to the public.

A photograph archive is to be developed at the museum. A scanner has been ordered and once the system has been set up, we will encourage the people of Brechin and district to bring their photographs along to be scanned.

A grand visual arts competition has been arranged with the Civic Trust and Brechin Photographic Society. The purpose is to celebrate the built heritage of Brechin. This will run in the Mechanics during the art festival and so far there are 36 participants. Works of art will be on sale.

The friends hope to produce Christmas cards and a winter scene by David Waterson has been chosen for this. Angus Council has created a new electronic catalogue of David Waterson's works which are in the council's collection of 77 framed works. During the year the Watson-Watt society of Brechin was formed to encourage more information on his work and to raise a permanent memorial in Brechin. It was decided that this society would be best stand alone than be affiliated to the Friends.

The Museum continues with their excellent seasonal displays. I would like to thank Norman Atkinson and Willie Milne from Angus Coucil for their very helpful support.

Dr. Robert Martin, Chairman

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2007

 

The Friends have had a successful year and have continued current activity and also are developing new projects. The membership is 63 including a member from Australia. We are hoping that the Townscape  Heritage Initiative will be successful and that work on the complete renovation of the Brechin Town House will start this winter This will mean that the museum will be closed for 6-9 months. The Council is looking at temporary accommodation for the museum. When it is re-opened, there will be an exhibition of the Waterson pictures that are in the care of Angus Council. Some of these pictures need restoration work and funds will be needed.

We held a well attended lecture evening in March in partnership with the Civic Trust .The lecture was given by Professor Charles McKean who gave an illustrated talk on-The Guthries, an Edwardian family in Brechin. George Mitchell arranged a successful raffle and David Adam kindly donated a picture. The Annual Civic Trust wine and cheese night was held in April .The Civic Trust agreed to share the proceeds with the Friends.We were very fortunate that Andrea Brymer agreed to open the event and to help The Watson-Watt Society of Brechin launch their leaflet. We have arranged a talk on October 25th by Mary Brownley on the House of Dun and Andrew Kennedy and we plan to hold a talk by Trevor Royal in February 2008.

The Friends produced a card with a snow scene picture of Brechin Cathedral by Moonlight by David Waterson. This was done with the help of Angus Council and thanks to Norman Atkinson and Jim Boon for their work. The picture is one of the Watersons in the care of Angus Council. Cultural services received 500 cards and The Friends also have 500 cards, and we are very pleased that 200 have been sold to date. They are available from the Office bearers at 90 pence each or £6.00 for 10 for members and retailers. It is a very attractive card and we would like to encourage members to obtain it.

The major project for the Friends over the past year has been Oral History. The Heritage lottery awarded £11,800 towards this. The contribution from the friends is £1,608.The sub-group is Brian Mitchell, Robert Martin, George Mitchell, Ann Mitchell, Brian Stephen and James Snedden who are giving their time to the project. Two members of the group attended a course for one day on oral history at Dundee University led by D.Murray Watson. The title is Home and Working Life in Brechin and District in the 20th Century. The recordings are made at the Angus Digital Media Centre which is at the Industrial Estate in Brechin. We have recorded 30 individuals and 20 hours of recording so far. The recordings will be edited and transferred to digital discs and held as a primary source of living history for the present and future generations. Presentation packs will be produced for use in schools and with adults to promote an interest in the heritage of the Brechin area. We plan to produce 9 discs and 2 presentation packs. We are collecting photographs from the interviewees to use with the discs. The group has aimed to interview a good cross-section of people from different backgrounds. We have given presentations to the Dalhousie Day Centre and residential homes and recruited some people from there.

The museum continues with their excellent seasonal displays and a recent interesting display of the secret war. The committee are concerned at the external appearance of the museum, the blinds give it a closed look and this has been noted by many people. We have made representation to museum services that this must be improved. We also hope that the photograph archive will be further developed. I would like to thank Norman Atkinson and Willie Milne from Angus Council for their excellent support. All being well with the THI we are looking forward to the complete restoration of the Town House next year.

Dr. Robert Martin, Chairman

Highlights from Chairman’s Report 2008

 

  • The Friends have had a successful year and have continued current activity
    and also are developing new projects.
  • The Townscape Heritage Initiative Bid for Brechin was successful and we expect that work to complete the renovation of the Brechin Town House will start in September 2008.
  • There was an exhibition of the Waterson pictures in the Town House. During the latter part of the Exhibition there was a very successful talk by George Mitchell on the landscapes of Waterson’s artwork.
  • We held a lecture evening in October in partnership with the Civic Trust
    The lectures were by Mary Brownlow, Angus Area Manager of the House of Dun and Andrew Kennedy, founder member of the Brechin Railway
    Preservation Society
  • The major project for the Friends over the past year has been to continue
    the Oral History project.

The title is Memories of Home and Working life in Brechin and District in the 20th Century. Presentation packs have been produced for use in schools
and with adults to promote an interest in the heritage of the Brechin area.
We have produced 10 separate discs and 2 power point presentation packs

The recordings are now attractively finished in 50 packs of 10 discs which
will be widely distributed to the Scottish Museum, Museums in Angus, the Brechin Town House and library. We plan to have a presentation of the oral history when the Town House is restored.
The photograph archive was started and about 500 photographs have been brought in. Many have been on show.

  • The museum continues with their excellent and varied displays

 Dr. Robert Martin, Chairman

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 2009

 

The Friends have had a successful year and   have continued current activity. The Townscape  Heritage Initiative  Bid to complete the renovation of the Brechin Town House enabled work to start. This means that the museum was closed  from September 2008.  We have been able to hold our meetings in The Old Registrar’s Office, courtesy of the THI Project. We are all very pleased that funding has been found for this project and are looking forward to the opening  which  is expected in April 2010.

When it is re-opened, there will be an exhibition of the  Waterson  pictures which are in the care of Angus Council .There will also be a permanent place for the Brechin Waterson pictures to be on public show.

A group of members and the Civic Trust have been looking at Mason’s marks at the Brechin Cathedral and Kinnaird Castle. At the Castle they have found marks similar to marks at Rosslyn Chapel.

The Friends, THI and Civic Trust have held a series of talks at The Old Registrars  Office. These have included  -Marion Greig , Archeology services to Angus on Mason’s Marks-David Easton ,Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments Scotland, Angus Airfield and other military matters- George Haggart, Archeologist , Sottish Ceramics.

Following the successful completion of the HLF funded oral history project, the Friends have produced a limited number of boxed sets of discs of the recordings. They are audio only and in boxes of 10 discs each lasting 1 hour. In the future we hope to transcribe these edited discs. We also hope to obtain funds to transcribe all the unedited tapes from magnetic to CD, about 55 hours of audio  recording .

The photograph archive has been very successful; there was an ongoing exhibition at the museum and we hope to restart this when the museum opens again.

We are grateful for the support that we receive from Angus Cultural Services ,Norman Aitkinson, Willie Milne and the museum staff.

Dr. Robert Martin, Chairman 

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 2010

I was very surprised but honoured to be elected Chairman of ‘The Friends’ at last year’s AGM and I now find myself again taken back that a full year has passed since then.

With the re-opening of the beautifully restored Brechin Town House Museum, the year 2010 was important and dramatic not just for ‘The Friends’ and museum staff but for the people of Brechin. Thanks to the involvement of Brechin Townscape Heritage Initiative (BTHI), this historically important building was brought fully back to life within the public realm. The result of this was to extend the floor space museum at ground level and provide exhibition space within the Gallery and smaller room on the upper floor. It was appropriate that when the museum was officially re-opened on 30 August 2010, it included an exhibition of the works of David Waterson, the Brechin artist, in the Gallery.

As well as congratulating the council architects and the manager of BTHI, we must also praise the hard work and skills of Cultural Services staff who have succeeded in providing the Ancient City of Brechin with a small but imaginatively designed exhibition of artefacts and information reflecting its long and tangled history. Very obviously the numerous visitors from the town, from elsewhere in Scotland and from abroad are in agreement and have clearly indicated so in the visitors’ book. I am sure all of us would encourage members of the public to pay a visit. I am certain that the proposed rolling programme of exhibitions in the Gallery will prove to be a continuing attraction.

I think this is an opportune time to remind ourselves that the Friends of Brechin Town House Museum is a community group that is concerned with promoting the history and culture of our area and specifically to support Brechin Town House Museum and its staff. While the restoration of the Town House has taken place our activities have obviously been limited, but with the re-opening we have again taken a more active part in encouraging interest in our heritage.

An award from the Community Grants Scheme allowed us to have the 55 hours of the unedited Brechin Oral History recordings digitised to ensure their permanent storage. These were then handed over to the museum for safekeeping and use by the general public. I hope to adapt the two presentation packs previously developed in the oral history project as introductions to the main collection. It is also planned during this summer to work with museum staff to invite the people of the area to permit us once again to scan their photographs and add them to the archive created a few years ago.

The ‘Friends’ re-commenced a series of relevant presentations held in the Gallery although the first talk in early December (2010) had to be postponed because of the bad weather. Nevertheless, we did manage to have two well-attended presentations by David Adam and myself by the end of the financial year. The programme of talks will continue although the intention is to have a break during the summer before re-starting in the autumn.

I think that it has been a successful year but only because of the sterling work of an excellent team, the Committee. I thank them all and particularly George Mitchell, Vice-Chairman, David Adam, Secretary and Anne Mitchell, Treasurer, for their support and efforts over the year. I also thank the staff of the museum for their assistance and support. I must also congratulate the latter on their continuing efforts in creating seasonal projects for school children and exhibitions, including the excellent wedding artefact display that was been created to coincide with the royal wedding in April.

The Friends of Brechin Town House Museum look forward to another year of their endeavours to encourage a wider understanding of the heritage of the Brechin area.

Brian Mitchell, Chairman.  22 June 2011