National Oddity Championships 2020
It seems like every time we open a box or turn a corner in the museum, we come across something that doesn’t appear to fit within the general profile of our collection. That isn’t to say the entirety of our collection is odd, but it definitely has its fair share of oddities. We get a lot of joy out of unpicking the stories behind the things we find, and asking ourselves why they belong in a museum that is ostensibly about the history of Egham and its surrounding area. So much so, in fact, that we decided to start a podcast, Egham Oddities: The Egham Museum Podcast, in an attempt to tell these stories and shed light on some of the lesser known items within the collection.
The first episode of our podcast was released in January 2020 and started with a bang. Our curatorial team (Sarah Corn and Amy Stone) sat down with host Steven Franklin and museum trustee Heather Knight (who is also a professional archaeologist) to discuss a giant golden cockerel, which used to stand proudly outside of the Barley Mow, Englefield Green. Since then we have had guests from the National Trust, the National Archives and our local university, Royal Holloway, come in and chat about our oddities.
The Idea
We were sure that we weren’t the only heritage organisation to have weird and wonderful items hidden in the depths of our archive, so we decided to challenge others to the first ever National Oddity Championships. After all, who doesn’t want to spend many hours on Twitter talking to people about whirling syringes, mermen and much more (more on this later!)? Especially while in the middle of nationwide lockdown!
On Tuesday 7 April 2020 we announced the competition, which would take place over the following 2 days. 17 heritage organisations from across the country had submitted their oddest item, and we would put them head-to-head in a series of Twitter Polls. The round of 8 heats and the quarterfinals were conducted on Wednesday 8 April, with the semi-finals and final taking place Thursday 9 April. The National Oddity Champion 2020 was crowned at 5pm.
Bring on the Oddities
Image Credit: Surrey Heritage Centre 
Image Credit: Royston Museum 
Image Credit: Leeds Museums and Art Galleries 
Image Credit: Horniman Museum 
Image Credit: Haslemere Museum 
Image Credit: Fishbourne Roman Palace 
Image Credit: Dorset History Centre 
Image Credit: Crawley Museum 
Image Credit: The National Archives 
Image Credit: Chertsey Museum 
Image Credit: Museum of the Home 
Image Credit: National Library of Scotland 
Image Credit: National Science and Media Museum 
Image Credit: Norwich Castle 
Image Credit: Natural History Museum 
Image Credit: Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret 
Image Credit: Royal Armouries
After many tense votes and lots of chatter, we arrived at the semi-final which saw the Horniman Museum’s Merman up against the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret’s Whirling Syringe. We asked for odd and we got what we asked for!
What is a Whirling Syringe you may ask?!
The Merman is slightly more self-explanatory but certainly no less strange.
You can see how it unfolded for yourself using #NationalOddityChampionships2020 on Twitter.
The Response
We are a small, independent, local history Museum in Surrey, characterised by its big ideas and ambition. This was no different. Other than the logistics of running such a competition, the response to the National Oddity Championships was different to anything we’ve ever done before. We went in thinking it would be a good opportunity to have some fun, chat with our heritage colleagues, and other people who were interested. It’s safe to say, we were surprised by quite how much it took off and captured everyone’s imagination.
While we know it is not all about data, it can be helpful to look at the stats and see how this compares to where we began. Not only did we gain over 200 followers across the three days (7-9 April), the number of impressions our tweet generated during this time was almost as high as the impressions on tweets in the last 12 months.
What next?
After the success of our first championships and having already received questions asking about he next one, the team are already gearing up for the National Oddity Championships 2021, which will hopefully be even bigger and better than this year. Are you from a Heritage Organisation and think you have something which is up for the challenge? Please do get in touch.
In the meantime we can’t wait to get back to recording more episodes of the podcast, maybe even taking it on the road for series 2?
There are more oddity conversations to be had! #BringontheOddity