The Frock Box

🌸 Spring cleaning at the 1620s House and Garden 🌸
We're busy with getting the s***k and span for their new season. We're vacuuming surfaces, checking for insect pests, laying pest traps and polishing the gorgeous wooden furniture. Later on today we will re-install the textiles and bed hangings after their annual freeze to kill any creepy crawlies.

To find out more about us visit www.leicestershirecollections.org.uk

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Lovely lithics loan! 🤩 We were very happy to lend these beautiful Palaeolithic handaxes to local researcher Neil who will be taking them to the upcoming conference taking place in Leicester this weekend.

The selection includes a gorgeous Middle Palaeolithic flint bout-coupé axe from Stanton-under-Bardon that was used by Neanderthals in the Mousterian period. This type of axe is only found in Britain and dates to 59,000 - 41,000 years BP 😲.

The others are a quartzite handaxe from Twycross and a fabulous Lower Palaeolithic ovate biface Acheulian handaxe from Mountsorrel, c. 500,000 years old likely used by our Homo heidelbergensis ancestors 😃

To find out more about our collections visit www.leicestershirecollections.org

The Museum Collections are out and about today at Whitwick Historical Society’s event at the local Methodist Church.
Why not pop in and see us?

Delighted to be at The Corsetry Symposium in Leicester today. We have brought a selection of corsets from the Symington collection, so please say hello and find out more about this amazing resource!

Enjoying the opening of the ‘Half Remembered’ exhibition.

The group visited one of our collections centres and produced art works is various media based on objects that resonated with them. It is always wonderful to see our collections used in this way, and in this exhibition you can see some of the objects alongside the artworks inspired by them.

This is just a taster of some of the lovely work on display.

The exhibition is at Charnwood Museum in Loughborough until 8th November 2025.

Would you like to find out more about the glittering life and times of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham?

We are delighted to be bringing leading authors and academics to Melton Carnegie Museum on Thursday 18 September to tell us more about the man, his family and the images he had made of himself, the clothes he would have worn, and his importance to LBBTQIA+ audiences.

Speakers are

Lucy Hughes-Hallett – Lucy Hughes-Hallett, prize-winning biographer, cultural historian and novelist and author of The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham

Karen Hearn, FSA, Honorary Professor, University College London; previously Curator of 16th & 17th Century British Art at Tate on ‘The early images of George Villiers - and how the Melton portrait dropped out of sight’

Professor Maria Hayward, University of Southampton on ‘Dressing as a royal favourite: The clothes of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, in the context of the Jacobean court’

Dr Megan Shaw, University of Auckland on Katherine Villiers

Jon Sleigh, Learning Curator and author & Alison Clague, Senior Curator, Culture Leicestershire on Villiers Revealed – connecting with new audiences and communities.

You can find more details on our website

✨️Gorgeous gold!✨️ We're heading into the final week of the Leicestershire & Rutland Festival of Archaeology as we celebrate this week's

These incredible Iron Age coins are known as the Peatling Magna Hoard and are displayed at Harborough Museum, Market Harborough. Weve recently re-displayed them in a more prominent location and we think they look stunning 🤩

They were found by metal detectorist Steve Bestwick in 2010 and reported via then declared Treasure. We were able to acquire thanks to generous funders (see details on second photo). The coins are Iron Age gold staters produced in northeastern France/Belgium and date to 60-50 BC.

For further details visit https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/415704

✨️ Jewellery Stories Display at Harborough Museum ✨️

It's the start of the national today. Head over yo in Market Harborough this summer to see jewellery from our archaeology collection, including recently donated pieces from the late Leicestershire metal detectorist, Brian Biddles.

Brian diligently recorded his finds over 40 years, first with the county archaeology team and then with the Finds Liason Officer. Many thanks to Brian's family for donating parts of his collection to us. Pop to our stories to see links to these wonderful finds.

There will be a special Jewellery themed activity at the museum on 23 July. Visit www.harboroughmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/ for further details.