Last year the Bevois Mount History Group managed to track down what will probably be the last resting place of the statuettes of Fountain Place. They are in the back garden of a care home in Alma Road. It is definitely them, and we were delighted to make their acquaintance. The staff of the home were very happy to let us take photographs of them, and we started to think that we would like to show them to a wider audience. So the idea of the exhibition Hidden Treasures of Bevois Mount came into being. The owner of the statues gave her permission for them to be borrowed and put on display, and we used a picture for our advertising.
The Blue Door Estate Agents were wonderfully kind to let us use their premises, and we started to plan the exhibition in earnest. As well as the statues, which were to be the stars of the show, we had old maps, original art - both contemporary and historic - and artefacts found in the gardens of houses in the Bevois Mount area.
We had books and postcards; refreshments were organised thanks to the kindness of Bitter Virtue; raffle prizes had been donated and we got ready to set up the exhibition and collect the statues.
Then, calamity! The statues were just too frail to travel. We had to make do with more photos, and the touching story of how they were rescued in 1968, when Fountain Place was demolished to make way for a car park.
Pride of place now went to the paintings of Frederick Lee Bridell and Eric Meadus, both of whom had strong links to the Bevois Mount area. We are extremely grateful to First Gallery who lent us the Meadus work.
Saturday dawned and we were excited to receive our first visitor.
The weather was fantastic the whole weekend, and we had a steady stream of visitors who read, had a drink or just chatted.
On Sunday we were delighted to welcome our old friend Mr Slam Daniels who brought his BMX group to sample some beer and peruse the exhibits.
The BMXers were on a tight schedule, and quite soon they had to be off to their next cultural stop.
All too soon our exhibition was at an end. It had been a great success and raised plenty of funds for our next mural project - putting the Earl back into Earls Road. We would like to thank all of you who supported us in putting on this exhibition, and we hope to see you in Earls Road soon.