Heritage Open Day: Totnes Museum is showing a photographic display of some of the elaborate, decorative plaster work ceilings in 16th and 17th century merchants' houses in Fore Street and High Street in Totnes. The Museum archive has photographs of some of the decorated ceilings in the upstairs rooms of these merchants' houses which are not usually on display in the Museum. Decorated ceilings were a status symbol indicative of the wealth of the merchants who owned the houses in the 16th and 17th centuries and were often illuminated and visible from the street below. Several of these ceilings survive today, but most are in private houses so access to them is limited (though you can sometimes see a glimpse if you look up as you walk through the town). The Museum's display is an opportunity to see this fine plasterwork up close and appreciate the skill involved.