St Ives-a new millennium - Flipbook - Page 30
St Ives-a new millennium
4/10/02
3:44 pm
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Above: Jack Harrison, basketmaker
Photo: George Dellar/Canon EOS600
Above: Bob Burn-Murdoch
Photo: Stuart Littlewood/Pentax MX
Is this the skull of St Ivo or a Roman landowner? Bob is pictured contemplating the question in the garden of the Norris
Museum in 2001, the year celebrated by the Town as the 1000th anniversary of the discovery of St Ivo’s remains.
He became curator of the Museum in 1980. His fascination for history was sparked by a brilliant teacher at the Perse
School. He went on to university at Bangor and London, and started his career at the Archaeology and Anthropology
Museum in Cambridge.
Bob has written several books including a best-seller The Pubs of St Ives, and every year spends his holidays touring
Europe. The Norris Museum opened in 1933 thanks to a bequest by Herbert Norris, a jeweller born in St Ives.
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Jack has sadly passed away, at the age of 93, since this picture was
taken. He was a very well known St Ivian and an all-round
sportsman. He went straight from school into the family basket
making business founded by his grandfather in Filberts Walk on the
Hemingford side of the river, near Victoria Terrace. In the 1820s 28
terraced houses were built in Filberts Walk including the Green Man
pub, known locally as the ‘Basket Makers Arms’.
40 acres of willow were cut each year to supply the business and
there were 5 rod-peeling yards. The Harrison Estate included Holt
Island - ‘holt’ means a plantation of osiers, a kind of willow used for
baskets. Unfortunately, when technology took hold in the 1960s the
business was closed down.
