Warwickshire Heritage and Culture and Libraries serve up our past in stunning new exhibition

Serving up our Past will go on display at Nuneaton and Rugby Libraries from Wednesday 5th January 2022, for a two month duration, and will open at Leamington Library from Wednesday 12th January, until the end of February. Each library will showcase different objects, all sourced from the extensive and fascinating collections of Warwickshire Museum.

From March, this exhibition will then tour across more libraries across Warwickshire, with the new locations to be confirmed soon.

Serving up our Past will look at cooking, eating and serving food over time, and how where we live has had a direct influence on what we eat and how we prepare it. From local pots that date back to the Roman age, to unusual Victorian kitchen gadgets, this exhibition will showcase a variety of cooking, serving and eating items from the collections of Warwickshire Museum. Through the items on display, we can get a glimpse into domestic life across Warwickshire- from the practical, to the quirky.

We will also be displaying transcripts of specially selected original recipes from Warwickshire’s County Record Office, some from as early as the 18th century. Visitors may be inspired to try some of these recipes at home! The QR code in the exhibition can also take you straight through to the Our Warwickshire Heritage Cooking Challenge, to find many more unusual recipes from the past.

Councillor Heather Timms, Portfolio Holder for Environment, Climate & Culture at Warwickshire County Council says: “It is fascinating to see how the lives and eating habits of the people of Warwickshire are reflected in the items that they used to cook, serve and eat their food with. I look forward to seeing the unexpected glimpses into our culinary past that this exhibition will reveal.”

Sara Wear, Curator of Human History, Heritage & Culture Warwickshire, Warwickshire County Council, explains "This exhibition is a great opportunity for us to display some fascinating objects from the collections through the theme of cooking and food, an ever-popular topic. Serving up our Past is a wonderful start to this partnership with Warwickshire Libraries".

Gill Robinson, Area Librarian North, Warwickshire Library and Information Service, Warwickshire County Council, says ‘Warwickshire Libraries are delighted to be hosting this compact but perfectly formed exhibition in Nuneaton, Rugby & Leamington Libraries in January 2022, allowing our communities to view a collection of fascinating objects from the HCW collection locally. This particular exhibition will take them on a journey from the earliest objects associated with cooking to our very latest recipe books which they can borrow to try out at home.’

For further information about Heritage and Culture Warwickshire and to find information about all our upcoming events please see our heritage and culture event pages