Director Ursula Corcoran on the birth of a new military museum

In November 2013 the Soldiers of Oxfordshire were handed their purpose-built museum and research centre in Woodstock, and the task of moving the vast and varied collections relating to the museum began.

For many years the collections have been stored in a variety of locations, not all beneficial to keeping the many objects and artefacts to professional museum standard.

The generous grant from Viridor landfill tax credits allowed the trust to create a modern roller-racking storage system within the archive store, and gradually from November to December the volunteers began to bring the collections together.

Alongside this the old research centre in Hensington Road was closed and the paper archive and IT systems came across to the new building as well. This meant the volunteer research team was able to keep responding to the enormous volume of enquiries coming in, mainly to do with the centenary of the Great War.

In our new home the actual planning for the eight exhibition displays could start to be visualised. Months of research, collecting objects from all over the country and getting them to display standard started to pick up rapidly and two new members of staff joined the team to help realise the vision for the new museum, which would have not just regimental history at its core but also tell the stories of conflict within the county.

With a museum assistant, Josephine Neill, taking responsibility for turning the templates for the displays into a reality, the professional design team could start to physically plan the spaces, resulting in eight unique standalone displays.

The second new team member, our education and outreach officer, Vicki Wood, then started layering the displays ensuring there were facilities for all ages to be able to get involved with the stories.

The result was a bespoke under-five space, perfect to allow little people to have fun whilst their parents, grandparents and older siblings could learn about the displays.

Most of the eight themed spaces now have an element of interactivity, notably dress-up and code-breaking in Secret War, and feely boxes and jigsaws in Blood and War, and we continue to explore science and technology themes with local industries providing hands-on activities to illustrate the importance of the county in the country’s military life.

By Easter, the programme for installation was firmed up and the whole team knew it was only a matter of weeks before the public would be allowed into the building to see what the years of planning had all been about.

Fundraising, led by Kate Burrows, increased as we tried to build up not only the museum’s profile but also attract more supporters through an active Friends scheme. We now have a thriving support network led by our Friends chairperson, Marie Jane Barnett, whose financial donations helped enhance the exhibition spaces.

As most of the staff involved with the displays’ time increasingly focused on the gallery areas it was left to our administrator, Sue Cross, to ensure all was ready both front and back of house.

The last few weeks before the opening bought some unexpected joys — unique objects donated to illustrate the centenary exhibition, Oxfordshire Remembers 1914-1918, curated by our centenary projects manager, Stephen Barker.

Members of the public who had already given personal epherema from their own families offered even more material to allow us to present even more fuller and rounded histories to our visitors.

The museum opened in June and, in reality, the real work of the museum has only just begun The collection holds many treasures and can provide a multitude of displays and the next few years will be full of discovery.

As the museum director, I can only feel privileged that I have been allowed to bring so many personal stories to life from the collections held under SOFO’s umbrella and extreme thankfulness that the old and new team, staff, trustees and volunteers who are SOFO have been carried along with my enthusiasm to make this work.