From William Penn to HS2: Local history on display at the Three Rivers Museum

"A local museum in an old house has recently gained something very modern - a bit of a HS2 tunnel boring machine. This is the Three Rivers Museum of local history in Rickmansworth and is very much what it says on the tin, being very much local history of the area. The house it's in is impressive, and more so if you notice the somewhat obscured sign by the entrance - as it was, for a short while, the home of William Penn."

"Eventually, he was granted a bit of land in America to live in exile. Oh, and that bit of land became the US state of Pennsylvania. So, quite a big bit of land. If only the family still owned it. But back in Blighty, for five years, he lived in this house in Rickmansworth, which is today a museum. Not to the man but the area."

"Like all good local museums, there's everything from old animal bones right up to Victorian industry on show here. A lot of things donated over the years, more from a feeling they shouldn't go in a skip, but what else can be done with them. Hence the huge box in the middle of one room from a butcher's, to the pub windows and odd bric-a-brac."

Rickmansworth’s local museum occupies an old house that once briefly housed William Penn. The Penn family navigated seventeenth-century English politics to stay aligned with the winning sides during the Civil War and the Restoration. William Penn later became a Quaker and relied on his father’s royal connections for protection. He received land in America that became Pennsylvania. The museum displays local artifacts in former residential rooms, including a copy of Penn’s charter and his autobiography opened to the Rickmansworth page. Exhibits range from animal bones and Victorian industry to donated bric-a-brac, a butcher’s box, pub windows, a long daily weather diary, and a recent HS2 tunnel-boring machine component.

Read at ianVisits