QUEEN Victoria invited visitors to share a cup of tea and a Pontefract cake at Wantage’s Vale and Downland Museum.

Her Majesty, aka Gwyneth Wall of Wantage, dropped in at the museum on Sunday for national Heritage Open Days.

The Church Street museum prizes in its collection a scarf knitted by Queen Victoria for an unknown soldier in the Crimean War. Mrs Wall, a grandmother of three and expectant great-grandmother, often reprises her role at the museum for visitors.

She said: “I usually sit up there for school parties or educational trips or the Wantage Dickensian Evening in December.

“About six years ago one of the administrators looked at me and said ‘I think you’d make a great Queen Victoria’.

“So I made my own costume, did the research and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Other costumed interpreters at the museum brought to life Wantage’s old 19th century tannery.

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone's contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.

Our top stories