Our Exhibitions
Since this History Group formed in 2010 its members have been collating and preserving images, newspaper articles, school & club records, property and charity documents as well as recording oral history.
Much of this information has been put on display at our Exhibitions each year. In 2025 alone the group put on 4 exhibitions:
Women’s Land Army exhibition & talk
At our February 2025 AGM to accompany our guest speaker Nicky Reynolds talking about Suffolk’s ‘Soil Cinderellas’. Please see the article on this website under Occupations for more information. The hour-long talk was recorded if you would like a copy. Listen to the introduction here:
Introduction to the Women's Land Army
Images & movies from 1960s-1970s
Our major Exhibition for 2025 was turning the spotlight on the villages of Saxmundham, Benhall & Sternfield in the 1960s-1970s. Over 600 colour slides were cleaned, digitized and printed for display. Six donated home movies were also digitized and shown at this Exhibition and then again at a Movie night in the Autumn. Update: a new set of slides by Hannah Fidler have been donated to the History Group in Feb 2026!
History of the Flower Show
In August our focus was on the history of the Flower Show from 1946 to present day and included original advertising posters for both the Show and the Miss Benhall competition as well as photographs, newspaper reports and anecdotes. This Exhibition will be on display again here in the main Hall in August 2026 as part of the Show’s 80th Anniversary.
200 Years of the Railway
In September at the Long Shop Museum we exhibited images of the Saxmundham to Lowestoft railway line including a detailed history of the Snape line received from historian Brian Boulton.
In total, just for 2025, the Group has placed over 1,900 pages of material into its archive. This is a phenomenal amount of material and it takes time to process and share with you.
Our books
As well as exhibitions we have created photobooks which are free for you to borrow: Our Royal & Jubilee History, People of Benhall & Sternfield and Changing Times on the Land.
Facebook & our website
We have just started a facebook group to share images and our upcoming events, use the facebook icon at the bottom of this screen. In addition last year we asked local company, Silverlace Creative, to design a new website so that we can showcase some of the fascinating people, history and events from our village archive.
If you would like to reciprocate by sharing your story too, please email us benhallsternfieldhistory@gmail.com
We look forward to hearing from you or seeing you at one of our exhibitions or meetings.
