One Grain was a participative research project at the old Brass Foundry in Bewdley Museum involving members of the public. One object from the museum collections was investigated everyday during July 2016 by a team of volunteers, visitors, staff, and invited experts. Starting with a tiny apothecaries weight, 1 a ‘one grain’ measure cut from a sheet of brass forged in the Exley foundry that now forms part of the museum, we worked together to build a giant biography of a single object.

This publication is a snapshot of the research. In fact, it is a very small proportion of the things we discovered. You can see where we followed leads and pursued hunches. We started with the ‘one grain’ weight but very quickly found ourselves researching all kinds of other things, from ancient histories to zoological classifications.