21st century development project 'Welcome Home'

The 'Welcome Home' project is seeking to restore the Old Rectory to its form in about 1716, when the Wesleys lived there. Through period rooms, with authentic floors, wall finishes, fireplaces and furnishings, visitors will be transported back 300 years to breathe the atmosphere as it would have been then. This is an ambitious project involving much research. Rooms will be furnished as they might have been, allowing visitors to see the house as the Wesleys used it. In addition there will be more interactive displays, including real fires burning in the revealed inglenook fireplaces.

Children and school parties will be able to 'become' part of the family and see what it was like to be educated in the home, through drama and interactive displays. We hope that this will become even more a place of inspiration and challenge. New exhibition spaces will be opened up so that more pictures and artefacts will be on display to help tell the story of the lives and influence of the Wesley family. Exhibitions will be changed frequently so there will always be more to experience at Epworth Old Rectory.

The main features of the refurbishment will be to :

• Install a lift
• Remove all twentieth century furnishings, including the mantelpieces and floor coverings
• Remove modern walls and restore early eighteenth century features
• Source period furniture and present some rooms as period rooms (as the Wesleys used them) and some as exhibition rooms.

We are also planning to upgrade our visitor facilities to make the whole experience of visiting the Rectory both comfortable and memorable.

Could you support this work? Any donations would be very gratefully received.

If you prefer to pay using PAYPAL please click on the DONATE button below