North Tawton residents will open a pop-up museum this month to showcase a treasure trove of town history which was discovered under the eaves of the old Methodist church.

The cache, which includes photographs, tapes and even a Victorian magic lantern, will be on display on November 19-20 in North Tawton’s community centre on Barton Street, where the artefacts were discovered by renovators.

Resident Kay Caldwell, who has been involved in the work, said: ‘When the church came into the current ownership of the group that that are running it as a community centre, they were doing renovations and repairs and that was when they discovered a lot of material that just had been tucked away for quite a while.

‘We’ve been talking about being able to have a permanent museum, you know, even just a room somewhere that was always available and we could add things to it.’

Along with some of the artefacts, the museum display will also include quotes from some of the tapes which were recorded by the late Jean Shields, a well-known historian who lived in the town.

North Tawton’s artistic community has also worked to recreate the scenes from the magic lantern, which has never left the town.

On November 20 at 3pm and 5pm, there will be the chance to see the magic lantern back in action with resident storytellers Michael and Wendy Dacre recounting an updated story with the original slides.

Mrs Dacre said: ‘It can’t be done in its original form so we’re inventing new ways to do it.

‘We could just do exactly what was done with it 100 years ago, but it wouldn’t make an enormous amount of sense to a modern audience unless you’re a historian or art historian.

‘We have got people who are really interested in that side of it, but we recognise that it isn’t a thing that you can do for everyone. It’s quite a striking image and the quality of the image is totally different from a modern quality of image because it’s not made up of pixels or anything. It looks different - almost 3D or furry. It’s weird, but it’s very interesting.’