By popular demand…. Two features during our Fairies in The Forest event proved so popular that we are making them available each of the Sundays in August too!
We’re having some fun with our Carnival Games located just outside the D’Aubigny Inn. Try your skill on tossing balls and rings. Take a picture on the moon!
Our second feature is The Potts Farmhouse Miniature. This miniature from the Westfield collection is rarely on display so here is your chance to see what the interior of the Potts Office looked like when it was a family home. The miniature is on display in the “Hardware Store”, number 25 on our map. Be sure to try the family craft while you’re there.
Here is a little bit more about the miniature and how it came to be from our Collections Officer, Peter Lloyd:
The office building at Westfield is actually the remnants of a historic building from the town of Simcoe Ontario, near Brantford. It was the farmhouse of George Potts and later his son, George Potts junior. Their farm was just south west of the village and for a time the family had a market stall at the Simcoe farmers market. As well as being a farmer, George was an entrepreneur. He bought the regional patent for the “Doo-little” spinning wheel in the 1860’s and converted his small barn, now also here at Westfield, into the Potts Spinning Wheel Shop.
The original farmhouse was not wooden or brick, it was made of blocks of mud and straw layered between planks. It was a very solid building on its original site and stood for over a hundred years. When the Potts family donated their buildings to Westfield in the 1970’s the small barn survived the move well but the mud blocks of the old farmhouse were vulnerable while disassembled and many of them were lost. Some few of them were saved for a display just inside the office door but the modern version of the building is made of cinder blocks.
What we know of the original building, on its original site comes from two brothers, Harold and Alan Potts, The grand children of George Potts Junior. As children they visited the house often in the 1930’s and 40’s. This impressive model is based on their recollection of the house from when they were young. It was put on display in the rebuilt Potts Building in the early 1980’s when it opened as a museum space here at Westfield.
Buy your tickets at the door. Parking is $11.00 and each person in the car is $5.00. Children 5 and under are free.
