Oswestry Town Museum welcomes more than 25,000 visitors in five years
A town museum has welcomed more than 25,000 visitors since it opened its doors five years ago.
Mark Hignett, who helps run Oswestry Town Museum, came up with the idea of a museum in the town six years ago and presented his vision to the town council.
On Wednesday, he returned to the council to update councillors on the progress of the museum.
Mr Hignett told the council that the museum had proved much more popular than anyone could have imagined.
He said: "It is six years since I approached the town council with an idea for a museum. I came with that presentation and a promise I would stick with it for five years.
"Well, I am still here and we are going great guns. We celebrated our 25,000th visitor in March as well as our fifth anniversary.
"We first predicted 3,000 visitors a year and we have been attracting over 5,000 a year.
"We are still getting artefacts coming in on a daily basis and get good feedback from visitors. We are a little short on volunteers though at the moment.
"The museum has been a real success, we have only had one negative comment over five years and that is the same one we had after 12 months. It has an economic knock-on as well. We are doing very well indeed."
Mr Hignett told councillors one of his favourite memories was an online bidding war for Second World War letters from a soldier who was doing his training in the town.
He said after transcribing the letters and researching the story, volunteers discovered they told of the secret gay relationship between two soldiers.
Mr Hignett has since used the story to promote the work the museum does in a series of talks.
He said: "We are going to continue to promote Oswestry because heritage played and still plays an important part in our future. I want to thank the town council for having faith in us six years ago and for supporting is in the way they do."
