Hannah Gray takes a closer look.

IF you ever feel that community spirit is fading and no one does anything to help others anymore, take a trip to Ramsey Rural Museum and you will change your mind instantly.

This is because every part of the museum, from the windows in the building to the artefacts themselves, are a testament to the kindness of others.

The idea of the museum was first hatched 30 years ago, when local farmer Marshall Papworth and some other adults took a group of children to visit a private collection of agricultural artefacts in Haddenham, Cambridgeshire. Everyone had such a good time they wondered if they could do something similar in Ramsey.

Jane Yardley, one of the museum's current volunteers, said: "It was decided yes there would be a museum, but where, and with what?"

Eventually, the present Lord De Ramsey, the Honorable John Fellowes, came to the rescue and began a legacy of helpfulness and generosity. He allowed the museum team to use a wood yard on the Ramsey estate for a peppercorn rent. There was only one catch – the site was derelict and overgrown.

Over the course of the next few years, a dedicated band of volunteers set about rebuilding a tumbling down cottage and establishing the museum.



They gave their time and considerable skill, and many of the materials used in the building were also donated. All of the windows were given to the team and every tile for the roof was donated, along with interior doors and the tables and chairs in the tea shop.

All of the artefacts inside are also donations, from people in Ramsey and Huntingdonshire. New things, Jane said, turn up every week.

After years of hard work, the museum opened to the public in 1983, and today is a popular spot with both locals and people from further afield.

So far this year it has had 6,500 visitors, and people have been known to come from as far as Yorkshire to look round.

Some people visit to use the museum's archive to research their family tree.

And today, the museum is more than a collection of agricultural artefacts, as Jane explained.

"The museum now covers the entire social history of Huntingdonshire," she said.

"Really, when we started, we never thought it would be as big as it is. Really now it should be called the Museum of Huntingdonshire Life.



"We have everything from Iron Age items all the way up to things from the 1950s."

Helping to organise and maintain all of this is a band 40 volunteers, about 20 of whom are able to turn up to help out every week.

Jane said it was not just a dedication to history that kept so many people giving their time for free.

"It's just like a big family really. People from all different walks of life come. Everybody has got different capabilities but there is something for everybody to do."

The oldest volunteer is the president of the museum, Stan Beebe, who is 88, and was one of the founding members.

Jane said: "We have got a very clever bunch of people here. They can turn their hand to anything. You are just as likely to find a woman up on the roof tiling and a man vacuuming," Jane said.

The volunteers are not content to leave the museum as it is, and continually come up with new ideas and projects to improve and develop it.