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You are here: Home > Museum
When moving here in May 2000, I was about to throw out our old Sinclair ZX81 computer when our youngest son, Owain asked what it was. I had to explain about computers that you had to plug in to television sets and program yourself. I also had to remind him that his big brother had spent his teens playing wit this machine, and was now making a career out of the skills he had learned on the little ZX81. At this point I realised how fast computers were developing and decided to hang to the little machine. A year later Owain wrote,
"It started in 2000 when we were displaying some potter's work above the shop, and we were also storing some old computers that Owain had played with when he was younger. We had quite a few visitors go upstairs and see the pottery up there, and also comment on our collection of computers and ask if we were going to set up a museum. And here we are, over five years later, we now have four separate exhibitions one of old farm machinery (borrowed from the ex-Gower Farm Museum, which closed down a few years ago due to ill-health), Radios (donated by an old student of Thelma's), computers (mainly owned by us many years ago, though a few were donated by friendly customers) and, in our wooden hut, we have an exhibition explaining a little about us, our farm, moth lists, the history of our rare breed sheep and its wool and the Bristol Channel etc."
The function of our collections is mainly to entertain those visitors who get bored with crafts, farming or ecology. However we also hope to inform or educate those who have a particular interest. A lovely feature of the collections is that they stimulate grandparents to tell their grandchildren stories of their youth, or early employment.
Some people may think that these collections are fairly remote from what may be expected at a Craft Centre, however, the early development of the radio, camera and computing industries, is the story of individuals with good ideas, who enthused other members of their families to apply craft skills to small scale production projects carried out in their kitchens. As their businesses grew and they met problems, they often overcame them by joining up with other families. The Agricultural engineering industry has also followed this pattern, and there are still quite large companies that are still family owned. Many other agricultural engineers are just local companies, that developed from blacksmiths into machinery sales and servicing organisations, before realising that a common breakdown could be prevented by redesigning a basic machine. Their improved machine makes them national news for a while, and becomes the tool of choice all over the country before they either sell out to a multinational or return to their core business. Just as farm machinery has developed from the work of the blacksmith, radio, camera and computer companies can trace their origins to simple carpenters, sheet metal workers, clock smiths, glass blowers, and electricians. Modern tractors now use computers, potato sorting machinery and combine harvesters use radar and computers, and CCTV is used in all sorts of machinery and livestock housing. Even now specialist companies on the fringes of these great industries are run by families, who are in touch with other small family firms who are suppliers, customers, or even rivals. These friendships often span national or even continental borders, so important problems are solved through personal contacts between people carrying out relatively small scale operations.
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