HYLANDS House hosted an action-packed Essex at War exhibition including stunning First World War re-enactments, historic machine-guns and live poetry readings and music.
The Essex at War 1914-1918 event, held on Sunday, was a collaboration by Essex County Council, Essex Records Office, Chelmsford City Council and Hylands House.
The official exhibition launch included performances from project artists like Coggeshall poet Luke Wright, who read three of his five poems commissioned for the Last Poppy project, an exhibition touring the county, and live music from the Essex Yeomanry Band, and Georgia Strand, Ric Saunders and Vo Fletcher.
The Last Poppy project, which received funding from the Heritage lottery fund, will be touring the county in upcoming weeks with details available online.
Lord Lieutenant of Essex, Lord Petre, was in attendance, cutting the ribbon to open the display.
He said: "A tremendous amount of effort has gone into this.
"It's very significant that we must begin recording this information because if we don't then maybe no one will and these facts are part of all our heritage."
The 'Horses at War' exhibition was in the stables, in the grounds of the grade two listed Hylands House in Hylands Park, and the 10th Essex regiment First World War living history group joined the 1914 Army recruitment stand to perform live re-enactments on the front lawn.
There was a number of live talks on topics such as mobilisation and land defences in Essex and the role of Women in the First World War, and an opportunity to research your wartime ancestors with the Essex Record office.
Sarah Girling, who is part of the cultural development team within education, helped put together the Last Poppy has Fallen project which focuses on the lives of individuals, families and communities during the First World War in Essex.
She told the Chronicle: "We wanted to collect the stories of the people that lived in Essex at the time of the First World War and how their lives were affected by the war.
"We wanted to do this in a creative way so we wanted music and poetry to complement the work that we were doing with seven museums in Essex.
"We had a number of volunteers learn new skills to find out how to research these stories.
"This is a wonderful setting and the perfect venue for such an exhibition."
The Chelmsford War memorial, Chelmsford Remembers, Marconi Heritage group and Stow Maries Aerodrome made representations with the Western Front Association who were exhibiting in the library.
The saloon also hosted a display telling the history of Hylands House during the First World War when the neo-classical villa was a temporary military hospital.
In the terrace room the Essex Record Office had displays of wartime stories with a number of panel boards covering different First World War topics.
Archivist Allyson Lewis has been working on collating the stories and researching topics such as special constables, home defence and the possibility of evacuation from the county for over a year.
She said: "During the process we found so many great stories. The war effort was so important because people went out to fight for the freedoms we enjoy today.
"The war was also a watershed moment for women and had a dramatic effect on the balance of the UK and allowed women to contribute to society more."
One of the unique stories displayed on panel boards was the tale of a Zeppelin crash in Little Wigborough, near Peldon, when 32 German soldiers were arrested by one special constable after they crashed near the village.
"We found out not only about the war effort at home but about the plans for evacuation in which people were expected to walk to Oxfordshire," added Ms Lewis.
The Western Front Association, a national organisation with over 6,000 members, was displaying a 1912 water-cooled Vickers machine gun that was used during the First World War.
Member and amateur historian, Bill Fulton, said: "We do love to visit museums and schools in Essex and this is a marvellous site to hold an exhibition like this.
"We travel round the UK trying to set the record straight about the history of the First World War and we are pleased to be able to exhibit here and maybe give people an insight."
To find out more about the last poppy project please go to https://lastpoppyproject.wordpress.com/
