Every item has a story to tell at Farmland Museum

An eel glaive, used to catch eels

Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) students have helped reveal the hidden histories behind everyday objects at Denny Abbey and the Farmland Museum as part of a new online project.

The museum near Waterbeach, which celebrates over 800 years of rural life in the Cambridgeshire Fens, holds a collection of thousands of artefacts ranging from tiny buttons to giant agricultural machinery.

ARU students have now explored some of these in detail, revealing how generations of Fenland people lived, worked and adapted to a changing landscape.

As part of a history module on material culture, the students examined the objects as active historical sources, which are full of clues about people’s day-to-day experiences, and their work has now been published as a collection of short online articles.

The articles focus on everyday items such as shoes and telephones as well as lesser‑known agricultural tools, including the eel glaive: a long, three‑pronged pole used to catch, but not kill, eels, which were once a key part of the Fenland economy. Although its use declined as the Fens were drained, the tool lives on in local heraldry, with two eel glaives featuring on the City of Ely’s crest.