THE museum is a wonderful place to work.
We receive several enquiries every month from people asking for a range of information.
From family history research or the origins of a house in the town, to Malvern’s connections with famous people from all parts of the world.
One recent enquiry came from an American woman who is researching the life of Catherine Hubback, the niece of Jane Austen.
Catherine’s husband came to Malvern for the water cure in 1848 and the researcher will be meeting Dr John Harcup, the chairman of Malvern Museum Society and an expert on the water cure, to discuss the various treatments that would have been offered to patients.
As we are all volunteers there are some enquiries we cannot readily answer since they are outside our expertise.
When this happens we can call on specialists at the County Museum at Hartlebury, the Worcestershire Regimental Museum in Worcester City Museum, or archivists and archaeologists based at The Hive in Worcester or in Hereford.
A few years ago, we were approached by a university lecturer from Worcester who asked for help in identifying a carved stone found in his garden in Newland. Duncan Westbury, who had unearthed it, showed it to one or two colleagues and asked us if we could shed anymore light on it.
It was a small, beautifully carved fragment of a monk’s head with a bald crown and medieval in date.
Similar carvings can be found at Hereford and a trip to see an expert at Hereford Resource Centre proved interesting but inconclusive.
The stone is quite different from those used by medieval craftsmen in Herefordshire, so the Newland monk was made elsewhere. Of course, it could have nothing to do with Malvern and perhaps it was separated from a group of carvings collected by a Victorian enthusiast.
We may never know unless more of the original sculpture is uncovered locally. It is on display in the medieval case at the museum.
