Ripley Museum
Ripley Museum in an earlier incarnation as a branch of the National Westminster Bank (Send & Ripley History Society)

Ripley Museum
(Send & Ripley History Society)

Ripley Museum
Ripley Museum's present exhibition recalls some of the decade's memorable moments (Send & Ripley History Society)

Ripley Museum
Current president John Slatford dresses up for an exhibition about Newark Priory (Send & Ripley History Society)

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of Send & Ripley History Society, a milestone presently being celebrated by memories of the 1970s in the Polyester, Platforms, Power Cuts and Punk exhibition at Ripley Museum.

Cameron Brown, the society chairman, said: “We were founded as the Send History Society and soon began production of a bi-monthly journal – and are about to publish edition 300.

“Membership quickly built up to over 200 and after 10 years the members decided to expand the reach to include Ripley. We now have some 350 members.

“The first journal announced that one of the objectives was ‘to add to the intellectual and social life of the village’. Ken Bourne, the first chairman, summarised the key goal as ‘increasing our knowledge of local history and helping to preserve our heritage’.

“After a half century – on a modest budget and with a relatively small group of volunteers – we have a fully accredited museum, one of the smallest in the country, and have fulfilled that initial promise to help preserve our heritage by building up an impressive resource of research material.

“This includes our collection of over 7,000 photographs; buildings reports on most of the local buildings of architectural or historic interest; 300 indexed journals and a treasure trove of local documents.

“We have continued to provide services to local schools and published an impressive list of books and short films. Our popular journal won the British Association of Local Historians’ award for best local history magazine in 2021.”

The 1970s exhibition runs until the end of March at Ripley Museum, to the right of Ripley Village Hall. It is open every Saturday from 10am to noon, or by appointment.

For further details, or if you have any thoughts for future exhibitions, contact Clare McCann, museum curator, at cricketshill@hotmail.com, or call 01483 728546.