Daventry Museum celebrates BBC’s centenary this year with commemorative exhibition

Daventry Museum will be celebrating the BBC’s centenary this year with a commemorative exhibition about the BBC.

BBC – A Centenary of Sights & Sounds opens this Saturday (July 2) and runs until December.

Exhibits include radio receivers from the start of the BBC, such as crystal sets, through to the pop music revolution, and an early television in a 1950s room setting entitled ‘Television comes to Daventry’.

On July 27, 1925, the BBC opened its transmitting station on Borough Hill, Daventry. Known as the 5XX, it was the world’s first Long Wave transmitting station and enabled the broadcast of a national programme, which most of the nation were able to tune in to and listen.

At the opening ceremony, a poem written especially for the occasion by Alfred Noyes, was recited and coined the saying ‘Daventry Calling’ which was heard across the nation when the programme started.