Ingersoll Cheese & Agricultural Museum Insider's Look

Experiencing Life on the Front Lines of History

Experiencing Life on the Front Lines of History

History came to life when the museum staged a First World War event, encompassing all 7 buildings and all of Centennial Park - a total of 10 acres of temporary museum displays and public programming about World War One. This included handmade "barbed wire" throughout the site, an enlistment office where visitors could swear an oath to the King, calesthenics classes, basic training like bayonet drill and marching (in step with the Ingersoll Pipe Band), a photo booth stocked with recreated uniforms, cavalry lessons, quilting, sewing, knitting and baking stations on the Home Front, a trench system, a hidden sniper (or were there two?), horse drawn wagon rides to the front lines, a casualty clearing station, a delousing station, a cemetery and a French estimanet. Part of the event including poetry reading in the trenches, and the culminating Battle of Hill 290.  Special thanks to the members of the History Matters Association, and the Great War Flying Museum for providing an overhead dog fight! 

This was presented as part of the award-winning Oxford Remembers Oxford's Own Project of 100 activities to mark the centennial of the Great War by museums in Oxford County.