Description: | -The collections cover the period from 1600 to present and make up about 50% of the museum holdings.They incorporate areas that are usually considered under Fine and Decorative art. The collections include domestic items, over the whole range of fixtures and fittings, utensils, heating, lighting, sanitation, laundry, food, drink, tobacco, hobbies, entertainment, sports and toys. Much is displayed in the Ravensworth Terrac town houses, the pit cottages and the Co-op store.
Personal items include a large costome collection focussing on occupational, working and non fashion items, accessories and associated material. Town crafts, trades and professions are represented by buildings, furnishings and fittings and include parts of Handyside's arcade from Newcastle. There are several complete shops and contents waiting to be fitted up in the town including a chemists, doctors surgery and bakers. Customs and traditions include the oral history tapes and an unpublished collection of manuscript folk music and song. Ethnic and other cultures are being developed. The education collection includes school furniture, teaching apparatus, maps, wall charts, object lessons, books and ephemera; most is housed in the Board school from East Stanley. Religion has the rebuilt Wesleyan Methodist chapel and a C of E church St Helen's , a stone building of the 1820s, from Eston in Cleveland awaits rebuilding,; there are small collections relating to primitive methodists and Roman Catholics. The social and political movements collection includes a dismantled Masonic temple from Park Terrace, Sunderland and other material relates to friendly societies, Trades Unions and the early Labour movement. Amenities, entertainment and sport have the Victorian cast iron bandstand in the town and objects for a municipal museum, a town library fittings, contents of an early cinema and models. Health and welfare includes medical items and ephemera. Emergency services have an 1890s horse drawn steam fire engine by Shand Mason, other fire engines and equipment, a horse drawn colliery ambulance and rescue equipment. The law enforcement collection has truncheons, arm and leg manacles, handcuffs, uniforms, and items from a police station. Parts of a magistrates court from South Shields are in store and a collection of standard weights and measures. Warfare and defence is largely civilian relating to World War I and II; a Krupp gun stands in the park. There is a Simplex armoured loco of 1916.
There is a small collection of 16 mounted animal specimens and 3 spirit specimens that are considered to be social history as they are used for display in the various period settings.
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