A splash of colour
An appreciation of Waltham Abbey Festival Week
by Bryn Elliott.
It started many years ago (the very early 1980's) as a celebration of National Museums Day.
The origins of what has now become the Waltham Abbey Festival Week [WAFW] lay with the then Curator of the Epping Forest District Museum [EFDM] in Sun Street, Waltham Abbey, Ann Partington Omar.
The local authority museum service had been in existence as a collection stored and displayed at the Council Offices in Epping.
The council allotted funding to take over a Tudor house, and former doctors surgery, in Waltham as an embryo museum. As it encompassed the whole of the District, from Sewardstone to Sheering, adjoining properties were acquired to provide greater space.
The museum opened in 1981, a modern extension being added later.
The Museum was of course quite new and virtually unknown.
In addition it suffered from residents of other parts of the District disliking the removal of "their" museum to the furthest reaches of the area.
The local people in Waltham were still also wholly unused to having a full time museum in their midst.
An unfortunate name clash with the similar sounding Epping Forest Museum, Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, did not assist. The Curator sought ways to bring "her" museum to the notice of as many people as possible.
The name she chose for what was intended as a one off music, costume and fireworks spectacular, "Tudor Day" was such a success that it was repeated annually.