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CHAIRMAN of East Northants Council Clive Wood had hordes of journalists visit his home in Washbrook Road, Rushden, yesterday.
Television cameras whirred and reporters from all the county's newspapers descended to see just what his "period" terraced house was like.
Mr Wood, a signwriter, has spent many years converting the inside, half into Georgian and half into Jacobean styles. And he threw open the doors to raise money for the Ethiopian Famine Appeal. The event raised £60.
The house was open between 10am and 7pm and after showing all his visitors around an exhausted Mr Wood said: "I've enjoyed doing it, and found it very tiring. I'm rather pleased I don't have to do this every day of the year.
"It was a bit of an experiment, I haven't raised the £100 I hoped to, but all in all it went very well. People certainly were interested in what I had to show them."
Unidentified newsclip, Jan 1st, 1988, article by Carolyn Underwood
Cottage museum plan
A TYPICAL one up, one down, shoeworker's cottage could house part of a collection of Rushden bygones.
The museum is the brainchild of Rushden Amenities Society which hopes to remove a tiny stone and pantiled cottage from its present site and rebuild in the town centre.
Rushden businessman David Hamblin has redevelopment plans for land between High Street and Rectory Road and has agreed to include the museum, although the whole scheme still has to be given planning permission by East Northants Council.
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Mr Wood rings Buck's bell while putting a Victorian pewter tankard and stone footwarmer to good use in his home
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Local historian and member of the amenities society Clive Wood said he hoped the scheme would be given the go-ahead. "We have a chance of keeping this cottage as a memento of old Rushden. We are not disclosing its location at present, but we have spoken with Mr Hamblin and he was amenable about including it in his re-development scheme.
"It is a very small cottage with no electricity or water supply. It has a workshop upstairs and the living accommodation must have been very cramped."
The amenities society already has some suitable artefacts which could go on display to recreate the working environment of shoemakers in the mid nineteenth century. They include an old clicking board — used for cutting the leather components of the shoe — and several original shoe samples.
And the group also has another prize item from Rushden's past which could be a centrepiece of a museum collection — the original town crier's bell.
The prize exhibit has been donated to the Amenities Society by Miss Maud Stapleton, 91, who now lives in Hull, but was formerly involved with the Rushden Independent Wesleyan Church. Miss Stapleton was given the bell by the former town crier Buck Turner after she borrowed it for various Sunday School concerts.
Mr Wood said: "Many older local people still remember Buck Turner. He had a catchphrase which many local people still use — "Don't say old Buck ain't told you."
"When we drew up a book of photographs of Old Rushden we were unable to find a picture of him and obviously now we have the bell we would be delighted to hear from anyone who has one."
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Notes on converting this house into Wentworth Cottage are in the article Clive wrote
in 2009 - 'One Man's Castle' - building The Vyne.
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