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About us
Our Museum is on the original Garrett Works site and covers 200 years of Leiston's amazing social and industrial history.
Meet some characters that worked here by clicking on the Works Notice Board and discover fun facts with copies of real objects and documents and worksheets.
Or click on the direct links for more information about the Museum and how to use the Activities and Resources with a visit.
Useful resource
Copies of the original 1881 Census, advertising literature, Workman's Register, archive photographs and pictures from our collection, can be found on this website together with taster activities which include a quiz, downloadable worksheets and web pages to print off and use with the whole class or work through online.
Using documents and historic artefacts, pupils will be able to learn about the rise and fall of the Garrett family and the Leiston Works and make links with life in the Victorian era, industrialisation, and changing characteristics of settlements, depending on their chosen study.
By following Town trails pupils can put the development of the Leiston Works into perspective within the local community and compare with modern use of steam power - Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station (2 miles from Leiston). Sizewell B's white dome can be seen from the Museum Entrance
Our biggest primary resource is the Long Shop building itself (built in 1852/53 for the assembly line production of portable steam engines) which houses an impressive collection of products made at Garretts including traction engines, seed drills and dry cleaning machines, and artefacts relating to the Works and to Leiston.
There is also a very superb History of Steam Exhibition which illustrates the history of steam from its earliest period, when it was discovered that steam had power and energy, to the 21st Century and Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) Nuclear Power Stations.
Click on the Activities page for details of suggested pre, during and post visit activities or click on the Worksboard where you will find characters, linked to the primary resources, posing questions to encourage pupils to look closely at the resources and find answers and raise further questions. These questions could then be used by pupils to create their own worksheets for them to try answering when they visit the Museum.
Further suggestions and worksheets produced by practising teachers for Key Stage 1-3 are available for schools use in the "Don't Stop the Tally" education pack. We also have specialist books and videos for sale in the Museum Shop.
All pages on this website are copyright of the Long Shop Steam Museum but may be downloaded and copied for educational use.