Barking Long Ago and Barking today
Our Barking - Heritage Exhibition has moved to the Barking Learning Centre. Last week we held two workshop sessions for under 11s in the children’s library there, using some fun objects and costumes from the exhibition. We told stories about Barking’s past starting at the beginning with the first settlers, through pre-history to the Romans and Saxons including the powerful Barking Abesses. We were singing songs along the way about fishing ('One, Two Three, Four, Five') and Jute mill workers ('Wind the bobbin up') and shopping ('Half a pound of tu'penny rice' and 'Five Currant Buns'). Read more about these themes in the exhibition there.
There were old objects and costumes to try out and crafts to create, all as part of Our Barking - a heritage exhibition curated by the Barking Heritage Volunteers and funded by The National Lottery Hetitage Fund.
The children were really engaged with the songs, costumes and crafts and found out about Barking Long Ago… There are two more exhibition sessions on Monday 8th and Wednesday 10th August, 11.30-1.30 hosted by our heritage volunteer Eric. You can find it in the Gallery on the ground floor of BLC and there is a new cabinet of Barking objects curated by George.
We will be moving to Eastbury Manor House for Open House fortnight in September.
Lesley and Sue at Barking Station The next day the heritage volunteers wanted to experience some exciting new improvements to Barking's transport services.
Firstly the extension of the Gospel Oak line from Barking to Riverside, a striking new station which links the developed marshlands on the Thames directly to Barking and beyond.
Alex admiring the new station The excitement increased as we approached the new pier on the Thames...
Decades after the pleasure boats ceased taking Barking folk between Kent and Greenwich the Clipper River bus has been introduced to Barking taking people from Riverside into the city and westwards via the Thames. 
We went as far as Greenwich and had a Maritime themed day at the museum and galleries there…
We loved the Art-deco look of this 1930s speed boat at the National Maritime Museum
Also Sir Francis' Drake's coconut shell cup - his gift to Queen Elizabeth was returned with gilt embellishments (you can just see the coconut shell within it) and another gift from an admiring Queen was a be-jewelled brooch star with a secret portrait of her on the reverse... She was clearly proud and even fond of her pirate adventurer who plundered the Spanish ships and colonies of their treasures for her benefit until peace ensued - then he became the first Briton to circumnavigate the globe. 
Find out more in the Tudor gallery at the National Maritime Museum - the free to view galleries there have many other interesting exhibits, and it is only a twenty minute Uber boat ride from Barking's Riverside pier. As is the Queen's House, Greenwich, designed by Inigo Jones for Queen Anne (wife of James I) she died before its completion, but her son, Charles I, gave it to his queen, Henrietta Maria, before he was executed by the Parliamentarians. It has a lovely free gallery too, with a stunning portrait of Drake's Queen - indicating Elizabeth's desire to be a figure on the world stage and trade globally - that is another story... Closer to home we will update you on dates to see Our Barking - Heritage Exhibition at Barking's Tudor Mansion - Eastbury Manor House - in September and October.
