Life lint

Big family visit to Gressenhall again today, it remains a favourite place for us for a variety of reasons.

Gressenhall workhouse (Mitford and Launditch house of industry) was founded in 1775, and opened in 1777, and operated as a workhouse until the 1930's. It then saw service as a wartime camp, and later an old people's home. It's now a museum, I think one of only two workhouse museums in the UK, the other being in Nottingham.

I first visited as a child in the late 1980's, at which point it was a grim place with real atmosphere. Now, it is sanitised and has many more exhibits, to make it more commercially viable, but consequently less spooky. I feel that workhouses should reflect their not-entirely happy history. During the renovations over the years, lots of odds and ends have been found, and these packets are thought to have been dropped and lost by soldiers based here.

Gressenhall is run by Norfolk Museums and archaeology service, their webpage is here.