Working with schools

Over the last 14 years we hosted visits from several of the local schools in the old building and also visited some schools to give talks about their heritage and the history of Denbigh, their community. We have shown them films and written booklets about Denbigh during the first and second World Wars in collaboration with the local British Legion.

We now want to take this to the next level and work jointly on projects which will be beneficial to them and us and create an interest in the history of our town.

We have already undertaken some extremely interesting and rewarding projects which have given everyone a great deal of satisfaction and improved our links with schools and young people.

Harold was a 6th form pupil taking his A levels and decided to do this study as part of his Welsh Baccalaureate. He produced an extremely useful report from his research and also put in many hours of volunteer time to fulfil the criteria for his A level. He is now studying politics in Chester university.

This entailed the restoration of the war memorial dedicated to ex-pupils of Denbigh County School who lost their lives during the Second World War, which had been severely damaged by fire about 30 years ago.
Charlie undertook this as part of his A level studies, working closely with the museum to ensure that it would be a fitting tribute to those who died.
His work resulted in a modern interpretation of the memorial, using the parts that had been saved and adding parts that were friendly to the environment. This was a great community project which involved the collaboration and support of many local groups and people and partly contributed to Charlie gaining an A* in his exam. He is now studying at Liverpool University.

As part of their curriculum year 6 of the school were studying aspects of the second world war. A film company wanted to film something about the war in the town of Denbigh. The children visited the museum and were shown objects relating to the war that are in the museum and were also shown the models of the railway station and the town in 1610. Chair of the museum Clwyd Wynne explained and described the items and the models to them while it was being filmed, and they then took a walk to Henllan Street to see where some of the soldiers that died in the First World War lived. The programme will be shown some time this year, 2026.

39 pupils and 3 teachers paid a visit to the museum to get to know more about the town of Denbigh. They were shown a film produced from old cine film which dated back to 1947 and up to 2000 called Memories of Denbigh, in the Grade 2 listed Buttermarket. This showed many buildings that are no longer here and events such as the 1953 coronation, carnivals, donkey derbies and parades on the town. They also visited the main gallery where they saw the Railway Station model and the town in 1610 and were given an explanation by the chair of the museum.

Discussions have taken place with the team at the High School who are competing in this event which could result in competing at world level which they have previously won. They want to include something about the local driver Tom Pryce who was sadly killed nearly 50 years ago. We have provided information, photos etc and hope to arrange for them give a talk and exhibit their project during this year.