New displays at Crediton’s Museum and Heritage Centre (From This is The West Country)

New displays at Crediton’s Museum and Heritage Centre

10:15am Monday 23rd July 2012 in Devon

TWO new displays have been added to Crediton’s Museum and Heritage Centre. The first display will see items usually stored at the community church loaned to the museum so that more people can learn about them, including a coat, boots, musket barrels and saddle, left in the town by the Cromwellian army during the English Civil War.

The second will feature awards earned by sportspeople at national level who live in the area that have been loaned to the museum to celebrate the opening of the London 2012 Olympics.

David Nation, organiser of the Olympics display, said: “It is just amazing what great successes have been achieved by local people. Just because you come from a small market town in rural Devon does not mean you cannot compete with the world’s best.”

The earliest Olympic success was a gold medal for Crediton solicitor John Symes who played for the England cricket team in the Paris Olympics of 1900 – the only time cricket has featured. Although they don’t have the medal on show, photographs are displayed of the team and local teams for which John Symes played. World achievements by Becky Brooks (now Tancock) in Tai Kwon Do and Ian Bond in bowls are featured, as are the improving performances at international level of athlete Sophie Skinner.