Fun, virtual salt & pepper pot exhibition

27 Oct 2020 11:37
Published by: Scott Callan

 

The Lion Salt Works Museum is also running a competition offering to turn the most quirky and fun drawing of a salt and pepper pot into the real thing, courtesy of the Cheshire Clay Collective. The winner will receive a free annual Family Pass and the winning salt and pepper pot, once made, will be displayed permanently at the museum. The competition will run until Monday 30 November*. 

The North-West’s premier industrial heritage Museum, the Lion Salt Works Museum in Northwich, Cheshire, is building upon its Autumn Season’s theme of ‘salt and food’ with a quirky virtual gallery showing a fun and diverse collection of salt & pepper pots. The exhibition, featuring part of the private collection of Andy Brown from Wallasey, Wirral, can be found on the Lion Salt Works Trust website, www.westcheshiremuseums.co.uk 

  

Councillor Louise Gittins, Leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council said: “What could be more appropriate for the country’s only salt museum than to stage this exciting exhibition during its ‘Brine Romance: Salt and Food’ season? Also how appropriate, given these uncertain times, that this quirky, fun collection can be enjoyed by everyone in this clever, online ‘virtual gallery’. Our thanks go to Andy Brown for sharing his fun and unusual collection with the Museum and the wider public.”  

The easily navigable ‘virtual gallery’ which simulates the experience of walking around a gallery, showcases a fraction of Andy Brown’s wide-ranging collection which includes an Olive Oyl salt pot and Brutus pepper pot; a Bugs Bunny set (pictured) as well as salt & pepper ‘scooters’ ‘postman and postbox’ and even a ‘Yellow submarine’ dividable salt and pepper pot. 

Andy Brown, 58, who runs Psychamok Records in Wallasey, Wirral, said: “I started collecting in 2004 in a rather roundabout way. I’d just got two lovely Saint Bernard puppies and was researching the breed online when I somehow stumbled across the Saint Bernard salt and pepper pots. Our passion for salt and pepper pots started from there, who’d have ‘salt’ it? 

“We’ve had fun sourcing salt & pepper pots from dealers as well as having gifts from family and friends. I must have a couple of hundred sets around the house, though I’ve never bothered to count them. As the collection has only ever seen by my wife and I, it is nice that other people will enjoy seeing them too. Who knows, it might inspire someone else to start a collection – we’ve yet to meet another salt & pepper collector.” 

To celebrate salt and to give children and adults a fun activity that can be enjoyed from home, the Museum is challenging everyone to come up with their own quirky idea for a salt & pepper pot. To enter, send no more than two drawings, to the Lionsaltworksmuseum@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk clearly marked ‘Salt & Pepper Competition’. The designs will be judged by the Cheshire Clay Collective on their imagination and fun and the winning entry will be turned into a ceramic set and displayed permanently at the museum. The winner will receive an Annual Family Pass to the Museum (worth up to £55). Please see the bottom of the release for Terms & Conditions. 

The Lion Salt Works Museum tells the story of salt and how it impacted on the people, landscape and industry of the region. In 2015, the Museum was re-opened after a four-year, £10m restoration and features a sound and light show, a ‘subsiding house’ and interactive displays, including an automaton. It has gone on to win nine awards. The Museum is one of the last open-pan, salt-making sites in the world and is so historically important that it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, with the same protection status as Stonehenge and Hadrian’s Wall.  

 

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