Lots of activities to do at the textile museum

Newtown Textile Museum is serving up a range of free activities for children and adults during the summer school holidays.

Situated in Commercial Street, Newtown, the museum has free drop-in workshops every Tuesday between today (July 23) and August 27, from 2pm to 4pm, when visitors of all ages can try their hand at tapestry weaving.

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Activities for children include dressing up in period costume, colouring pictures and playing with a boxful of old-fashioned toys. Museum chair Janet Lewis also revealed there will be additional surprises in store for visitors.

From this Thursday, July 25, the museum will welcome weaver in residence Rachel Thomas, a multi-disciplinary textile art graduate of Carmarthen School of Art, each Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Rachel, who has recently won a Wonderwool Wales bursary, will be weaving on the museum’s loom and talking to visitors.

The museum’s special exhibition this year features Sport and Leisure between 1850 and 1914 and tells the story of the development of football in Newtown and popular Sports Days that drew large crowds of people. An exhibit is a rare certificate from 1879 when Newtown White Stars beat Wrexham 1-0 to win the Welsh Cup final.

The museum is open free of charge from 12 noon to 4pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays until the end of September. For more information, visit www.newtowntextilemuseum.co.uk.

Housed in an original handloom weaving factory, built in the 1830s, the volunteer-run museum aims to bring to life Newtown’s industrial heritage, showing how people lived and worked in the building and the processes involved in turning fleece into flannel.

In addition, industries linked to wool - tanning, clog making and drapers’ shops, including the Pryce Jones family who pioneered mail order – are featured.

Newtown was the centre for handloom weaving in the 1830s and the museum is the last of 82 such buildings remaining in anything like its original condition.