Oswestry museum welcomes 25,000th visitor

Mark Hignett, who helps run the attraction, said he came up with the idea of a museum in the town six years ago and presented his vision to the town council.

On Wednesday, he returned to the town council to update councillors on the progress of the museum, which included the landmark visit.

Mr Hignett told the council that the museum had proved much more popular than anyone could have imagined and continues to go from strength to strength.

He said: “It is six years since I approached the town council with an idea for a museum. I came with that presentation and a promise I would stick with it for five years.

“Well, I am still here and we are going great guns.

“We celebrated our 25,000th visitor in March as well as our fifth anniversary.

“We first predicted 3,000 visitors a year and we have been attracted over 5,000 a year and we don’t take into consideration the groups I go out and give talks to.

“We are still getting artefacts coming in on a daily basis. We get good feedback from visitors. We are a little short on volunteers though at the moment.

“The museum has been a real success, we have only had one negative comment over five years and that is the same one we had after 12 months. It has an economic knock-on as well. We are going very well indeed.”

Mr Hignett told councillors one of his favourite memories was an online bidding war for Second World War letters from a soldier who was doing his training in the town.

He said after transcribing the letters and researching the story, volunteers discovered they told of the secret gay relationship between two soldiers.

Mr Hignett has since used the story to promote the work the museum does in a series of talks.

He said: “We are going to continue to promote Oswestry because heritage played and still plays an important part in our future.

“I want to thank the town council for having faith in us six years ago and for supporting is in the way they do.”