Earlier this year, Spalding Gentlemen’s Society was fortunate enough to receive support from Art Fund, the national charity for museums and galleries, to work on the first large-scale redisplay of our collections since 1911. You can find out more about the Museum Reimagined project here.
While our museum on Broad Street has been closed throughout 2026 for building works, our team – including community volunteers, young people, and early-career heritage professionals – has been working through plans for the museum. Their work has included carrying out object research, discovering previously untold stories behind our artefacts, and submitting ideas for exhibits.
From its earliest days, the Society has collected ‘curious’ things. When the museum reopens in spring 2027, we plan to include a cabinet of curiosities to exhibit some of our most extraordinary and intriguing artefacts.
One of the items we hope to exhibit is a small bronze tool, which we were fortunate enough to have recently been given. Found locally, near Gosberton, it shows the breadth of items that are coming out of the ground close to where you and I live.
As a bit of background, the Copper (Chalcolithic) age spanned from approximately 2500 to 2200 BCE, before being replaced by the Bronze Age (approximately 2200 through to 800 BCE in Britain).
Let’s take a closer look at the tool. Having a green-brown patina from centuries (possibly up to three or four thousand years!) in the earth, the blade is blunted and scarred.
This example is untypical of what we think of as a Bronze Age weapon; it is only 83mm long, 48mm at its widest point, and 6mm in thickness. It has no flanging (the extended edge that sticks out at right angles to the edge of the main body of the blade), securing loop or socket to fix it with.
All this leads me to think that it may be a chisel or an adze (an ancient cutting tool) for working wooden objects. The blade would have been fixed into the handle with resin and sinew.
You can see three bronze tools or axes (all from our collections) in the image, the central one being the item we have just acquired. It is similar to the largest one in design, but so much smaller. We hope you’ll come and see it for yourself when the museum reopens.
By Ian Hoult, Honorary Curator
