Last updated at 08:30, Monday, 30 May 2011

It’s a Wednesday lunchtime and people are pouring into Cumberland Pencil Museum. It’s not the school holidays, and it isn’t raining. But the place is teeming with people keen to give an hour or so of their lives to the study of a wood and graphite writing implement.

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This has been happening for a long time. This weekend the museum is celebrating its 30th birthday.

And it has gradually become as much an object of curiosity as its subject matter.

Pencils? Well, maybe.

But a museum devoted to pencils? Now there’s something worth writing about with your HB.

Cumbria is the birthplace of the pencil. Legend says it all began in the early 1500s when a violent storm in Borrowdale led to trees being uprooted.

A strange black material was discovered underneath. The substance was initially thought to be a form of lead.

It was actually graphite. And it was soon apparent that this stuff could be used to mark paper.

The discovery revolutionised writing and drawing.

Keswick became the pencil capital of the world, leading to the formation of Britain’s first pencil factory in 1832.

The Cumberland Pencil Company was formed in Keswick in 1916 and opened the pencil museum in 1981, in its former canteen.

Production transferred to Lillyhall in 2008 but the museum remains in Keswick and has recently expanded with a shop and a café – named Sketchers.

The museum was originally expected to receive 20,000 visitors a year. These days 80-90,000 pay their money. The visitors’ book includes names from numerous nations, particularly Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and USA.

While many visitors are seeking shelter on a rainy day, research shows that one-third of clients come here on a recommendation.

What’s the attraction? Marketing manager Alex Farthing is an upbeat woman with a passion for pencils, and she has seen plenty of sceptics leave as converts.

“There are people with negative thoughts about the pencil museum when they’ve just come in to get away from the rain,” she says. “Our aim is to turn them into thinking the museum is a lovely place. Most of them do. We really pride ourselves on turning people’s perceptions around.”

One way is by showing the pencil as something to be used as well as studied. Each table in Sketchers has a container of coloured pencils. One wall is covered in drawings created by customers, from portraits to pets to landscapes.

“People really love it,” says Alex. “They’ll come in on Monday or Tuesday and do a drawing and come back later in the week and see it on the wall.

“Most people can remember using a pencil at school and have never used a coloured pencil since. Adults suddenly realise they used to really love drawing when they were kids.

“It’s a really relaxed environment, in our busy, frantic world, to take 20 minutes to kick back and enjoy themselves.”

Interaction has been a key element of Alex’s five years at the museum. The café itself was introduced on her watch, as were the regular free artists’ demonstrations and workshops for children and adults. People can also buy a day’s tuition. Watercolour, Manga and animation are among the styles to be studied.

So using pencils is one attraction, but being able to tell your friends that you’ve been to a pencil museum is another.

The museum was included in a recent bookwhich explores some of Britain’s more offbeat tourist attractions.

Last year Cumbrian author Hunter Davies included it in his book Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans: My Search for Britain’s Maddest Museums.

“A lot of people come here because it’s something quirky or unusual and they’ve got a tick list of quirky or unusual things to do,” says Alex.

“It’s an escape from everyday mundane life. Things that make you smile or make you laugh are nice to do when you’re on holiday or a day off.”

Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans is among those who share the passion for something offbeat. Alex has been on his show twice.

“He really loves us. He got in touch with us about pencil sharpenings. He did a competition for how long you could make one slither.”

One what? “That’s a shaving. The winner had only three millimetres of the pencil left.”

These are exciting times in the pencil world. Alex has just found out about a museum in the USA... for pencil sharpeners.

“It’s in Ohio. I’ve contacted him to see if we can work together.”

Does it seem... strange at all? A museum full of pencil sharpeners?

“No. It was music to my ears when I heard.”

There are plans for the pencil museum to move elsewhere on the site, doubling its size. The number of staff has doubled to 12 under Alex’s tenure and they have won Team of the Year at the Cumbria Tourism Awards twice in the last five years.

The museum is now on Facebook and Twitter, with updates about events and the opportunity for people to upload their pencil drawings.

The story began long before the days of social networking websites.

Museum visitors enter through an impressive replica of a Seathwaite mine where graphite used to be harvested.

At the other end of the tunnel is a history of pencils, including cabinets packed with boxes and tins made by the Cumberland Pencil Company.

There’s two of the oldest surviving coloured pencils, both pre-1837. There’s a Charles and Diana wedding commemorative tin; a colour pencil drawing of William and Kate; machines from bygone days of pencil production; videos telling pencil-related tales.

And there’s a very big pencil: nearly eight metres from eraser to point, suspended under the ceiling. It was completed 10 years ago today, to celebrate the museum’s 20th birthday.

Sharpened by chainsaw, it took 28 people to carry its 70-stone weight from factory to museum.

This used to be the world’s longest pencil, until German company Faber Castell decided to make an even larger one. But theirs is boring old grey. Keswick’s is still the world’s largest colour pencil, resplendent in bright, defiant yellow. Sorry – deep cadmium.

Much smaller but arguably more impressive is a gadget that James Bond would have been proud to possess.

During the Second World War a team of Cumberland Pencil Company managers, sworn to secrecy, would return to the factory at night. They carefully filled hollow pencils with four tightly rolled maps of Germany and a tiny compass. These helped British airmen find their way to safety after being shot down.

Only about 10 of the pencils are known to be still in existence.

“We’ve tried to recreate them,” says Alex. “But we can’t figure out how they managed to get the maps so small.”

Cumberland pencils have enjoyed a much higher profile than they were allowed during that top secret project. Keswick-made pencils were used to draw The Snowman; the classic cartoon by Raymond Briggs.

More recently, cinema-goers saw Cumberland pencils bring Beatrix Potter’s animals to life in the animated sequences of Hollywood hit Miss Potter, starring Renee Zellweger.

Clearly, there is much to learn and admire about the pencil, as Margaret and Jack Bentley are discovering.

The retired couple have come here from Barnsley. Not just to visit the museum, but it was always on their Cumbrian to-do list.

“I don’t know how, but we’ve always known about it,” says Margaret. “It might have been a family joke. But I’m very impressed, and it’s very reasonably priced. I hadn’t realised it was so hard to get the graphite for the pencils. We treat pencils with contempt a little bit. And we shouldn’t.”

The visitors’ book contains similarly glowing praise from pencil enthusiasts, rain dodgers, and those keen to tick off a piece of English eccentricity.

As one visitor wisely noted: ‘This museum has many good points.’

Cumberland Pencil Museum’s 30th birthday celebrations culminate tomorrow and Bank Holiday Monday with artist workshops and demonstrations, galleries of artists’ drawings, competitions, raffles and children’s activities. Phone 017687 73626 to book workshops as places are limited.

n Hunter Davies, author of Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans: My Search for Britain’s Maddest Museums , on Cumberland Pencil Museum.

“On the face of it it’s very boring to base a museum around one small item. How can you get a museum out of pencils?

“But every Cumbrian knows that the history of the pencil is part of the history of Cumbria.

“The history is important to the success of the museum but mostly it’s the people behind it who have been so enterprising and imaginative. They’ve made it into an audio-visual experience.

“You see all these kids drawing and painting with watercolour pencils, because you can do amazing things with pencils these days.”

n Borrowdale graphite is no longer used for pencils.

Stocks have long since dwindled and the mines closed in 1890.

These days reconstituted graphite imported from Asia is used for Cumberland Pencil Company pencils, in a casing of renewable cedar wood from North America.

Cumberland Pencil Company pencils are made in 200 colours and transported to 74 countries.

Cumberland is Australia’s biggest supplier of pencils.

The company is now best-known for its Derwent brand of fine arts products.

First published at 09:32, Saturday, 28 May 2011
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk