CHILDREN from schools get a chance to a have a hands-on approach to history when they visit Wycombe Museum.

Under the eyes of the museum's education officer, Marc Meltonville, they can handle tools made and used by chairmakers in Victorian times either in workshops in the towns and villages or out in the woods where bodgers split logs and used them to make chairlegs.

The instruments first used in the leg-making process were the beetle and wedge, now better known as a pub name.

The beetle, a heavy mallet made of ash and bound with iron was used to drive the blunt iron wedge into a log splitting it into 16 lengths.

"It's quicker than a saw," said Marc, "and not so wasteful because there's no sawdust."

The children can try on the breast bib which chairmakers used to protect themselves when they pressed a brace and bit into their chests as they cut out holes in chair seats.

The workmen leaned above the seat and used the weight of their body to give the power they needed to make the cuts

"Now they would get the power from a Black and Decker," said Marc.

They can handle the adze, a traditional tool to shape wood and wonder why the sharp blades of the chisels are so short.

They have been worn down over the years and Marc tells the children they are looking at a workman's life there.

There are examples of chairs made locally on display, including a high teacher's chair, later used by May Queens at a village school.

There is a sturdy carver that might have been used by the butler in the servants' pantry and an Ercol chair from the 1960s.

The Victorian chairs were not meant for posh rooms but for everyday use, said Marc.

Now the museum has produced a teachers' pack thanks to the South East Museums Education Unit which met half the £3,000 costs.

The information inside enables teachers to learn more about what the children will see before their visits, and contains worksheets and questions for them to fill in while they are there, as well as work for them to do back in school afterwards.

It's the first pack the museum has produced. Chairs were the obvious first subject and was the one asked for by schools consulted.

The next is likely to be Roman Wycombe or archaeology, says Marc.

There are some wonderful old photos in the pack; chairs stacked up by the hundred ready to be taken all over the country; bodgers in the woods with their fires, turning equipment and makeshift tents.

The museum also has the complete workshop of chairmaker Jack Goodchild of Naphill, who died in the 50s including the chair he never completed and a photo showing the man himself shaping a curved piece of yew for use as a chairback and, on the wall, templates he would have used to cut out different seatback styles

Marc said: "The children come here to learn about history from a local perspective and this gives them something that can be looked at at school; as well."

The museum celebrates its 40th anniversary in Priory Road next year but has been in the town since 1934.

It is financed by Wycombe District Council.

Simon Lockwood, the county council's history adviser, who was present at the launch of the resource pack, said he would be suggesting that schools bought it.

WYCOMBE Museum may move from its existing home in Priory Road, High Wycombe, because the building is considered too small and it is difficult for disabled people to get around it.

But any move wouldn't be before 2004, so it won't interrupt the museum's 40th birthday celebrations.

A possible new home could be the current library in Queen Victoria Road, opposite the district council offices. The library is scheduled to move to a new building in the Western Sector.

Buckinghamshire County Council has capital set aside in its reserves to build the showpiece library for the town, but it won't be easy to find a new use for the current library because it is a listed building and because of its position.