We are now taking email bookings from Tuesday 4th August , when we re-open , until Sunday 9th August. Make sure you get a time slot by booking with us before you come. We will allow only one family group in every ten minutes to ensure your safety. All you need to do is email info@devilsporridge.org.uk with the approximate time you want to arrive, give your name, size of group and phone contact details . We will get back to you with an exact slot time when you are guaranteed priority entry.
This Nepalese Gurkha Kukri is being kept in the Museums store cupboard so we thought that we would do some research about it to find out what it really was and discover the history of it.
The Kukri is a type of machete originating from the Indian subcontinent, associated with the Nepali speaking Gurkhas of Nepal and India. The knife can be easily identified as it has a distinct recurve in the blade. It is used as both a tool and a weapon in the Indian Subcontinent. Traditionally, it was, and in many cases still is, the basic utility knife of the Gurkha. It is a characteristic of the Nepalese Army, the Royal Gurkha Rifles of the British Army, the Assam Rifles, the Kumaon Regiment, the Garhwal Rifles, the Gorkha Regiments of the Indian Army, and of all Gurkha regiments throughout the world, so much so that some English-speakers refer to the weapon as the “Gurkha blade” or the “Gurkha Knife”.
While the Kukri is most famed for its use in the Military it is most commonly used as a multipurpose tool for utility in fields and homes in Nepal. Its use has varied from building, clearing, chopping firewood, digging, slaughtering animals for food, cutting meat and vegetables, and opening cans. Its use as a general farm and household tool disproves the often stated “taboo” that the weapon cannot be sheathed “until it has drawn blood”.
The Kukri was first produced in 1810 and while we don’t know which time period the one we have is from they were used through multiple wars all the way up to the Falklands.
This First World War bayonet was recently brought into the Museum by one of our volunteers and is an American M1917 bayonet which was used in World War One, World War Two, Korean War and in the Vietnam War.
It was first used by American soldiers in WW1 on the Western Front. A sword bayonet design, the M1917 bayonet design was based on the British pattern 1913 bayonet. While designed specifically for the M1917 rifle, the bayonet was fitted for use on all the ‘trench’ shotguns at the time. The US continued to use the WW1-made M1917 bayonets during World War Two because of large stockpiles left over. The new trench guns being procured and issued were still designed to use the old M1917 bayonet.
The bayonet was then called upon again during the Korean war for issue due to the various trench guns still being in use. In 1966 procurement orders were let for brand new production M1917 bayonets. Stockpiles had finally run out, and new Winchester 1200 trench shotguns were being issued. These were issued in limited quantities during the Vietnam War. It was not until towards the end of the Vietnam War that new military shotguns were designed to use the newer knife bayonets.
M1917 bayonets were still used by the US Army as late as the early 2000’s for use with the M1200 shotgun.
Welcome to The Devils Porridge Museum Podcast!
The Devils Porridge Museum Podcast has been created as part of an intergenerational oral history project. The project is now available for you to listen to online.
Through conversations and interviews, our volunteers and others from the local community will be sharing their personal memories and stories with The Devils Porridge Podcast team.
This weeks Podcast is a collection of memories and stories by a group of Haaf Net Fishermen who were interviewed at the Museum earlier this year.
More episodes will follow over the coming weeks, so please come back and listen to more installments throughout the summer.
If you would like to get involved in the project to share your own stories and memories or if you would like to find out more about joining our production team please contact: Steven@devilsporridge.org.uk.
You can listen to the podcast below:
HMS Lion was a Battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy in 1910. She was the lead ship of her class, which was nicknamed the ‘Splendid Cats’. They were significant improvements over their predecessors of the indefatigable class in terms of speed, armament and armour. This was in response to the first battlecruisers, the Moltke class, which were very much larger and more powerful than the first British Battlecruisers, the Invincible class.
Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet battlecruisers throughout World War One, except when she was being refitted or under repair. She sank the German light cruiser Cöln during the Battle of Heligoland bight and served as Vice-Admiral Beatty’s flagship at the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland. She was so badly damaged at the first of these battles that she had to be towed back to port and was under repair for more than two months. During the battle of Jutland she suffered a serious propellant fire that could have destroyed the ship if it had not been for the bravery of Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey, the turret commander, who posthumously received the Victoria Cross for having ordered the magazine flooded. The fire destroyed one gun turret which had to be removed for rebuilding while she was under repair for several months. She spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea, although she did provide distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917. She was put into reserve in 1920 and sold for scrap in 1924 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.
Welcome to The Devils Porridge Museum Podcast!
The Devils Porridge Museum Podcast has been created as part of an inter-generational oral history project. The project is now available for you to listen to online.
Through conversations and interviews, our volunteers and others from the local community will be sharing their personal stories and memories with The Devils Porridge Podcast team.
This week on our podcast we chat to Sybelle, who is one of our volunteers about the Annan Riding of the Marches and the history of the event.
More episodes will follow over the coming weeks, so please come back and listen to more installments throughout the summer.
If you would like to get involved in the project to share your own stories and memories or if you would like to find out more about joining our production team please contact: Steven@devilsporridge.org.uk.
You can listen to the podcast below:
Sikorsky Ilya Mourometz
The worlds first 4-engined aeroplane, Russkii Baltiski was designed and flew in 1913. From this was developed the Ilya Mourometz flown early in 1914 and was capable of carrying 16 passengers to an altitude of 2000m, at a speed of 62mph and able to remain airborne for 5 hours. Ten examples were ordered for the Imperial Russian Air Service at the outbreak of war and, eventually 80 aircraft were built. The first operational sortie was made on 15th February 1915 over East Prussia and, up to the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, some 400 bombing raids were made over German and Lithuanian territory for the loss in action of only one aircraft.
SPAD A2
Before the days of the introduction of interrupter mechanism for Allied fighter aeroplanes to enable a machine gun to be fired between the revolving blades of the propeller., British and French designers chose to develop aircraft with pusher engines armed with a machine gun which could be operated from the front cockpit by either the pilot or the gunner. An interim solution which used the more efficient tractor biplane was the complicated SPAD A2 with a pointed front nacelle placed directly ahead of the of the propeller containing a gunner and Lewis Gun. The pilot sat in a cramped cockpit behind the propeller. Designed by M. Bechereau of the Societe pour les Appareils Deperdussin the aeroplane first flew on 21st May 1915 powered by an 80hp Le Rhone 9c. 96 SPAD A2’s were constructed; 42 for the French Aviation Militaire and 57 for the Imperial Russian Airforce, now engined with the 110hp Le Rhone 9j. The A2’s operational life with the French was brief as faster and lighter aircraft were now coming into service equipped with guns firing through the propeller. The Russian Air Force with a general shortage of equipment retained the SPAD A2 much longer and used it with limited success in most battle areas.
Some old postcards in the Museums store inspired us to research the Solway Viaduct in more detail. The bridge and its railway line used to connect England and Scotland, it was also used in WW1 to supply HM Factory Gretna and its former site is located about 6 miles from The Devils Porridge Museum.
The Solway Junction Railway was built by an independent railway company to shorten the route from ironstone mines in Cumberland to ironworks in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. It opened in 1869, and it involved a viaduct 1 mile 8 chains (1.8 km) long crossing the Solway Firth, as well as approach lines connecting existing railways on both sides.
Reconstruction of the viaduct began in the summer of 1882: in the rebuilt viaduct, the three inner columns in each pier were still cast-iron, but the two outer ‘rakers’ were each a single wrought-iron tube filled with concrete and provided with timber ice fenders.
In 1914 an assessment of the maintenance needs of the viaduct was carried out. The long metal structure exposed to a marine atmosphere had deteriorated and £15,500 would need to be expended in maintenance work. The work was suspended on the outbreak of World War I, which saw increased use of the viaduct for iron-ore and pig-iron traffic from West Cumbria to Scotland. It was announced that stations south of the viaduct were to be closed from 1 February 1917 but this decision was promptly rescinded. The creation of a large munition works at Eastriggs, to the east of Annan, gave the line additional traffic; including (in May 1917) the Royal Train, carrying King George and Queen Mary on a four-day tour of that and other munitions factories.
Any future use of the viaduct was impossibly expensive, and after a period of dormancy, in 1933 arrangements were made to demolish it. Arnott, Young and Company purchased the bridge and dismantled it; much of the material found a second use, and some of the metal was used by the Japanese forces in the Sino-Japanese War. During the work three men lost their lives when attempting extraction of one of the piles; the men were inexperienced in boat work and their boat was caught in strong currents and capsized. The dismantling of the viaduct was completed by November 1935, but sections of the pier foundations remained in the bed of the estuary. The section of railway between the south end of the viaduct and Kirkbride Junction was dismantled as part of the process.
Welcome to the Devil’s Porridge Museum Podcast!
Over the last few weeks museum staff and volunteers have been working on an inter-generational oral history project. This project is now available for you to enjoy in the form of the Devil’s Porridge Museum Podcast.
Through conversations and interviews, our volunteers and others from the local community will be sharing their personal stories and memories with the Devil’s Porridge Museum Podcast team.
The first podcast features museum Chairman Richard Brodie, discussing the origins of the museum with some young visitors. More episodes will follow over the coming weeks, so please come back and listen to more instalment throughout the summer.
If you would like to get involved with the project to share your own stories and memories or if you would like to find out more about joining our production team please contact Steven@devilsporridge.org.uk
You can listen to the Podcast below:
If you would like to know more about the Museum, its collection and history, you might be interested in our Museum guidebook (just £2.50 from our online shop):
