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A fifty-one foot long grooved oak beam weighing five or six tons recently reached Avoncroft Open Air Museum near Bromsgrove. The impressive timber – discovered submerged by workmen – may have been a central span in a medieval bridge over the River Teme near Tenbury Wells; ring-dating and construction methods still have to be researched. Avoncroft's director, Michael Thomas, is delighted with this latest addition to the Museum's motley collection of complete buildings and historic bits and pieces. The Museum opened in 1967 and its twentieth birthday celebrations should include the completion of the most ambitious project – a new role for Guesten Hall Roof – not quite in its 1320 pristine state, but reconditioned to form the central feature of a large (sixty feet long) exhibition hall.