NEWTON Abbot Museum has five new ‘firsts’ for visitors as it reopens for 2025.

Expected to attract attention at the Wolborough Street museum is the collection of silver on loan from the medieval church of St Blaise in Haccombe.

‘These ecclesiastical items are incredible, the earliest is Elizabethan and they are in such good condition,’ said Curator Dr Charlotte Dixon.

‘We have flagons, chalices, alms plates and patens, which would have been used in church services.’

Another first is a boy’s sailor outfit with likely connections to the Curtis family of Denbury Manor.

‘Lettice Curtis was a notable Newtonian and during the Second World War she was one of the first female pilots and certainly the first female to pilot a four-engined bomber,’ said Dr Dixon.

‘The sailor outfit is new to our collection, coming in from someone with links to Denbury Manor.’

The costume case is now graced by a Victorian lady’s embroidered silk dress that was worn at Buckingham Palace while the object of the month is a 19th century barrister’s horse hair wig discovered in a local office that once housed a legal firm.

‘It’s an amazing find being so fragile yet still intact and with its original case,’ said Dr Dixon.

The conservation case houses a display about specialist techniques used in keeping objects in good condition while the last ‘first’ is a uniform worn by a midwife whose 1940 visit to a patient near the railway coincided with a Luftwaffe bombing raid.

‘We’re optimistic about the coming season and looking forward to welcoming people in,’ said Dr Dixon.

‘In Devon Square, the museum attracted 2,000 to 2,500 people each year, now in Newton’s Place and we predicting 12,000.

‘Last year the figure rose to more than 15,000 and we’re hopeful of matching or even exceeding that.’

The new collections are being complemented by an extensive program of family activities and workshops, details of which can be found at www.museum-newtonabbot.org.uk.