Museum sights in England
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Brewhouse Yard Museum
Housed in five 17th-century cottages carved into the cliff below the castle, this engaging Brewhouse Yard Museum re-creates everyday life in Nottingham over the past 300 years with particularly fine reconstructions of traditional shops.
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B
Museum of Liverpool
Liverpool's storied past is explored within the confines of an eye-catching futuristic building designed in typical Scandinavian verve by Danish firm 3XN. Inside, it's all fizz-bang-wallop as you wend your way through an interactive exploration of the cultural and historical milestones of Liverpool - the railroad, poverty, wealth, Brookside (a popular 80s TV soap opera set in the city), the Beatles and football (the film on the meaning of the game to the city is worth the 15 minutes). The desire to tell all of the city's rich story means there isn't a huge amount of depth, but the kids will love it, as will anyone who doesn't want a doctoral dissertation on urban…
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C
Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
This unexpected find in the heart of Notting Hill is the brainchild of designer Robert Opie, who has been collecting advertising memorabilia since the age of 16. It’s fairly low-tech, but very eye-catching, and visitors of every age will enjoy the hunt for familiar products. There are sponsored displays at the end of the gallery, with exhibits showing the evolution of packaging of certain well-known products such as Johnson’s Baby Powder, Guinness, Kellogg’s Cornflakes and Cadbury’s chocolates.
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D
Garden Museum
Housed in the church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, this peaceful, green-fingered museum’s trump card is its charming knot garden, a replica of a 17th-century formal garden, with topiary hedges clipped into an intricate, twirling design. Keen gardeners will enjoy the displays on the 17th-century Tradescant père and fils – a father-and-son team who were gardeners to Charles I and Charles II, globetrotters and enthusiastic collectors of exotic plants (they introduced the pineapple to London). Captain William Bligh (of mutinous Bounty fame) is buried here (he lived and died nearby at 100 Lambeth Rd). The excellent cafe serves vegetarian food. Temporary exhibitions are also…
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19 Princelet St
This unique Huguenot town house was built in 1719 and housed a prosperous family of weavers, before becoming home to waves of immigrants, including Polish, Irish and Jewish families, the last of which built a synagogue in the back garden in 1869. In keeping with the house’s multicultural past, it’s now home to a museum of immigration and diversity, with carefully considered exhibits aimed at both adults and children. Unfortunately the house is in urgent need of repair and, as such, opens only infrequently (usually no more than a dozen times a year). Check the website for dates.
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Ypres Tower Museum
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World of James Herriot
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E
Wells & Mendip Museum
Surrounding Wells Cathedral is a cluster of ecclesiastical buildings that form the medieval Cathedral Close. The Vicars' Close is a cobbled alley of 14th-century houses, thought to be the oldest medieval street in Europe; nearby is the 15th-century Old Deanery and the Wells Museum, with exhibits on local life, cathedral architecture and the archaeological finds of Wookey Hole.
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University Museum
Oxford has some excellent (free) museums, among them the University Museum of Natural History, famous for its dinosaur and dodo skeletons, and the attached (and incomparable) Pitt Rivers Museum, an Aladdin’s cave spread over three floors and crammed with such things as voodoo dolls and shrunken heads from the Caribbean and Pacific. Visitors are given torches (flashlights) to ‘explore’ the lower Court Gallery and are allowed to open all the drawers. Great stuff.
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Southwold Museum
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Ryedale Folk Museum
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G
Royal Green Jackets Museum
The pick of Winchester's cluster of army museums is the Royal Green Jackets Museum, with its mini rifle-shooting range, a room of 6000 medals and an impressive blow-by-blow diorama of Napoleon's downfall, the Battle of Waterloo.
reviewed
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H
Oxford University Press Museum
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Market House
The 17th-century Market House sits atop weathered sandstone columns in the Market Pl; inside the salmon-pink building is an agreeably hand-crafted heritage centre with local history displays.
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Manchester Museum
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Louth Museum
A short walk north from the centre, the 100-year-old Louth Museum has displays on local history, including a reproduction of William Brown's Panorama, painted from the spire of St James' in 1844. You can view the original inside the Sessions House.
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Leicester Museums
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Jane Austen's House Museum
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Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust
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House on Crutches
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Heritage Centre
The Heritage Centre sits in a half-timbered treasure across the street, with displays on local history.
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Helmshore Mills Textile Museum
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I
Gurkha Museum
Features the regiment's history, combining a jungle tableau with a history of Gurkha service to the British crown.
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Guildhall
Before escaping to the New World, the Pilgrim Fathers were briefly imprisoned in the 14th-century Guildhall, one of Lincolnshire's oldest brick buildings, dating from the 1390s and situated close to the River Witham. Inside are fun, interactive exhibits, as well as a restored 16th-century courtroom, and a recreated Georgian kitchen.
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J
Cambridge & County Folk Museum
Next door to Kettle's Yard, this 300-year-old former inn now cluttered with a wonderfully diverse collection of domestic tools and equipment from 1700 onwards.
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