At the reopening of Valence House Museum last summer the Dagenham Destroyer welcomed the Dagenham Idol home. The Destroyer is local boxer Kevin Mitchell, current British Super Featherweight champion, who cut the tape and donated a pair of his gloves for display in the local celebrities section of the Communities’ Gallery.
The idol is an older Essex boy, a wooden figure carved 4,500 years ago and one of the earliest known representations of the human form in the UK. Found in marshland near Dagenham in 1922, it had been one of the prize items in Colchester Museums’ collections, but is now back where it belongs, in a generous example of an inter-museum loan.
Standing in its own special showcase, the idol is the first object that visitors encounter in this impressively refurbished local history museum.
Rapid urbanisation
Dagenham has been transformed within living memory. A century ago it was a village in rural Essex. Now it covers much of the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, an almost completely built-up district of Greater London.
The change happened rapidly in the 1920s and 1930s, following decisions taken a long way from Essex by the London County Council (LCC) and the Ford Motor Company of Detroit.
In 1920 the LCC started building an enormous cottage housing estate on former farmland at Becontree. Within a decade the council had created a new town for over 100,000 people.
Unlike most of London’s booming interwar suburbs, which were private developments where the middle classes could buy their own homes, Becontree was a giant working-class social housing estate, where nearly everyone was a council tenant who had moved out from crowded east London.
Ford built the biggest integrated car plant in Europe at Dagenham Dock, moving its entire British operation and more than 2,000 key workers from Manchester in 1931. It soon became the largest local employer. By 2002, when car assembly at Dagenham ended, more than 10m vehicles had been built there.
Valence House Museum provides an important and tangible heritage link between the pre-20th century rural past and the post-industrial present. The moated, timber-framed building dates from the 15th century and is the only surviving manor house in the area.
Originally scheduled for demolition when the LCC began work on the Becontree estate that now surrounds it, Valence House became the first offices of Dagenham Urban District Council when the local authority was created in 1926.
When a purpose-built Civic Centre was opened in 1937, the house became the headquarters of Dagenham Libraries and the chief librarian set up a local history museum in part of the building. It was a far-sighted move to establish a public museum for a new community that had no roots at all in the local area.
Seventy years later, when many local authorities in London were either neglecting or actively running down their museum and services, Barking & Dagenham council started work on a major project at Valence Park in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Valence House, now Grade II*-listed, has been carefully restored and renovated, with new museum displays throughout. An object-rich presentation, part chronological and part thematic, now gives a clear and entertaining overview of Barking and Dagenham’s history.
The permanent displays and temporary exhibitions are well designed and very people-orientated. They are based on good collections but objects are linked wherever possible to named individuals, which helps to bring a wide range of local objects and stories to life.
Work and industry
Some of these are fascinating, such as the famous Dagenham Girl Pipers Band, who performed in front of Hitler in 1930s Berlin. The museum has examples of their tartan uniforms, dolls and souvenir jigsaws, all a bit like pre-war Bay City Rollers but with no Scottish connection.
The area has also produced more than its fair share of soccer heroes, including Bobby Moore, Alf Ramsey and Terry Venables, all 20th-century Dagenham idols who make an appearance in the museum.
There are reconstructions of council house interiors from the Becontree estate and excellent use of oral history, personal snapshots and home-movie clips to show domestic life in Barking and Dagenham from the 1920s to the 1970s. I had expected to find more on local work and industry, particularly on life at the Ford factory, which became notorious for strikes in the 1960s and 1970s.
The 1968 walk-out by women machinists who made the seat covers at Dagenham was particularly significant in that it paved the way for 1970’s Equal Pay Act. A local dispute grew into a national issue, a story that was heavily embroidered into one of the best British films of last year, Made in Dagenham.
The episode gets a mention in the museum, but the real-life drama of the rise and fall of Ford through the eyes of the local workers deserves a major display. Unfortunately, the company does not seem to have given the museum so much as a Cortina hubcap to represent its key role in the local economy.
Across the courtyard from the house, a former council depot has been replaced by a new research facility, local studies library, education room, cafe and shop. These are housed in a simple box-like structure that may not be great architecture, but is practical.
My only complaint is the complete lack of signage, either near or on any of the site buildings. Being in a park in the middle of London’s largest council estate, Valence House is difficult to reach by public transport.
Barking & Dagenham council should be applauded for giving Valence House the support to make it one of the best local history museums in Greater London. It has also just opened a new high-tech central library in the borough, another investment in local public services that are being reduced all over the UK.
Having made this commitment, I hope it is sustainable in the bleak climate of coalition cuts.
Oliver Green is a research fellow at the London Transport Museum
Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund £1.8m, MLA £24,000, London Borough of Barking & Dagenham
Curator Leeanne Westwood
Architect Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Main contractor Mansell Construction Services
Exhibition design Brennan Design
Graphic design Hotrod Creations
Audiovisuals Elbow Productions
Installation Exhibition Factory
Display cases Click Netherfield
The idol is an older Essex boy, a wooden figure carved 4,500 years ago and one of the earliest known representations of the human form in the UK. Found in marshland near Dagenham in 1922, it had been one of the prize items in Colchester Museums’ collections, but is now back where it belongs, in a generous example of an inter-museum loan.
Standing in its own special showcase, the idol is the first object that visitors encounter in this impressively refurbished local history museum.
Rapid urbanisation
Dagenham has been transformed within living memory. A century ago it was a village in rural Essex. Now it covers much of the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, an almost completely built-up district of Greater London.
The change happened rapidly in the 1920s and 1930s, following decisions taken a long way from Essex by the London County Council (LCC) and the Ford Motor Company of Detroit.
In 1920 the LCC started building an enormous cottage housing estate on former farmland at Becontree. Within a decade the council had created a new town for over 100,000 people.
Unlike most of London’s booming interwar suburbs, which were private developments where the middle classes could buy their own homes, Becontree was a giant working-class social housing estate, where nearly everyone was a council tenant who had moved out from crowded east London.
Ford built the biggest integrated car plant in Europe at Dagenham Dock, moving its entire British operation and more than 2,000 key workers from Manchester in 1931. It soon became the largest local employer. By 2002, when car assembly at Dagenham ended, more than 10m vehicles had been built there.
Valence House Museum provides an important and tangible heritage link between the pre-20th century rural past and the post-industrial present. The moated, timber-framed building dates from the 15th century and is the only surviving manor house in the area.
Originally scheduled for demolition when the LCC began work on the Becontree estate that now surrounds it, Valence House became the first offices of Dagenham Urban District Council when the local authority was created in 1926.
When a purpose-built Civic Centre was opened in 1937, the house became the headquarters of Dagenham Libraries and the chief librarian set up a local history museum in part of the building. It was a far-sighted move to establish a public museum for a new community that had no roots at all in the local area.
Seventy years later, when many local authorities in London were either neglecting or actively running down their museum and services, Barking & Dagenham council started work on a major project at Valence Park in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Valence House, now Grade II*-listed, has been carefully restored and renovated, with new museum displays throughout. An object-rich presentation, part chronological and part thematic, now gives a clear and entertaining overview of Barking and Dagenham’s history.
The permanent displays and temporary exhibitions are well designed and very people-orientated. They are based on good collections but objects are linked wherever possible to named individuals, which helps to bring a wide range of local objects and stories to life.
Work and industry
Some of these are fascinating, such as the famous Dagenham Girl Pipers Band, who performed in front of Hitler in 1930s Berlin. The museum has examples of their tartan uniforms, dolls and souvenir jigsaws, all a bit like pre-war Bay City Rollers but with no Scottish connection.
The area has also produced more than its fair share of soccer heroes, including Bobby Moore, Alf Ramsey and Terry Venables, all 20th-century Dagenham idols who make an appearance in the museum.
There are reconstructions of council house interiors from the Becontree estate and excellent use of oral history, personal snapshots and home-movie clips to show domestic life in Barking and Dagenham from the 1920s to the 1970s. I had expected to find more on local work and industry, particularly on life at the Ford factory, which became notorious for strikes in the 1960s and 1970s.
The 1968 walk-out by women machinists who made the seat covers at Dagenham was particularly significant in that it paved the way for 1970’s Equal Pay Act. A local dispute grew into a national issue, a story that was heavily embroidered into one of the best British films of last year, Made in Dagenham.
The episode gets a mention in the museum, but the real-life drama of the rise and fall of Ford through the eyes of the local workers deserves a major display. Unfortunately, the company does not seem to have given the museum so much as a Cortina hubcap to represent its key role in the local economy.
Across the courtyard from the house, a former council depot has been replaced by a new research facility, local studies library, education room, cafe and shop. These are housed in a simple box-like structure that may not be great architecture, but is practical.
My only complaint is the complete lack of signage, either near or on any of the site buildings. Being in a park in the middle of London’s largest council estate, Valence House is difficult to reach by public transport.
Barking & Dagenham council should be applauded for giving Valence House the support to make it one of the best local history museums in Greater London. It has also just opened a new high-tech central library in the borough, another investment in local public services that are being reduced all over the UK.
Having made this commitment, I hope it is sustainable in the bleak climate of coalition cuts.
Oliver Green is a research fellow at the London Transport Museum
Project data
Cost £7.5mMain funders Heritage Lottery Fund £1.8m, MLA £24,000, London Borough of Barking & Dagenham
Curator Leeanne Westwood
Architect Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Main contractor Mansell Construction Services
Exhibition design Brennan Design
Graphic design Hotrod Creations
Audiovisuals Elbow Productions
Installation Exhibition Factory
Display cases Click Netherfield
