Your editorial (The Guardian view on archaeology and writing: the world-building power of small thoughts, 7 January) struck a chord with me as I am working on an exhibition to be held at Wells & Mendip Museum.
Through the lens of a seemingly mundane, though exceptionally large, collection of domestic pottery excavated from the museum garden in the 1990s, it brings to life the people who lived there over the course of 500 years. With a particular focus on the 18th century, the finds reveal their tastes, habits and interests; how fashion, the expanding empire, the impact of slavery and the growth of the consumer economy at home touched real people in Wells.
The collection remained untapped and largely unseen until the dedication of volunteers and seed funding from Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund instigated a programme of research and community activity, culminating in the exhibition Smashed in the Cellar. We are all the poorer if small, largely volunteer-funded museums such as Wells, as well as our larger public institutions, are starved of the support received from local and national government. Funding from charitable trusts and the agencies that distribute Lottery funding is ever more oversubscribed. It is the nuances of life, past and present, that foster understanding and compassion.
The exhibition will run from 16 February to 11 April.
Vicky Dawson
Museum and heritage consultant
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