The Museum of London Docklands
I ended up here yesterday by accident, as I’d gone to Docklands to have lunch and got caught in the rain. So as it was free I went inside.
Museum of London Docklands
It was definitely worth a visit. I should say that it is very comprehensive and it will take at least three or four hours to see everything.
I particularly liked the section on some of the technology we used to invade Europe on D-Day. It’s the first place I’ve seen a detailed display about PLUTO (Pipe Line Under The Ocean), which supplied fuel to the invading forces using undersea pipelines. The museum also has a large display about the Mulberry Harbours, that were created to land Allied forces in Normandy. Some of the giant Phoenix caissons were actually built in the drained West India Docks, where Canary Wharf has now been developed. I have actually been inside the four Phoenix breakwaters, which were used to bridge the gaps in the dykes in the Netherlands after the terrible floods of 1955 and now form the Watersnoodmuseum.
It covers London Docklasnds from Roman times to the present and all of the important figures like the Brunels and Bazalgette are properly documernted.
During the Olympics, the Museum will become the German House. I wonder what some of them will make of the wartime section!
Do We Mislead Tourists?
I travelled to London Bridge today and on the train I met a couple of ladies from New Zealand, who were trying to get to the Churchill War Rooms in Whitehall. But their hotel had told them to go to London Bridge to see something similar by the London Dungeon. I put them on a Jubilee Line train to Westminster.
I also met an Australian tourist and her family going to the London Dungeon. I suppose they had kids, but at least I was able to point out Borough Market and Sothwark Cathedral. Let’s hope that when London Bridge Quarter gets finished, they put up some decent information.
At least though I saw this outside the Globe Theatre a few street’s away.
I have a simple tourism rule. I don’t pay to go into anything, unless it’s National or special interest museum. I’ve never been to Madam Tussauds, the London Dungeon or any of the other places in London setup to relieve tourists of their money. These places are not an asset to London, just as others of a similar ilk aren’t in Paris, Amsterdam and New York.
Many of the best tourist sites in London are free and all some require are a London Travelcard or Oystercard. Here’s my favourite top ten.
- The front at the top of any London double deck bus. Favourites include a 24 from Victoria to Hampstead and the two heritage routes (9 and 15). I like to play bus roulette and get on the first that turns up.
- The British Museum. It’s worth going in, just to see the roof and have a nice coffee. Special exhibitions are extra, but the main museum is free, althougth they do like the occassional donation. When it’s not too busy, you can handle some of the exhibits. I’ve seen little girls, and big ones for that matter, in Roman necklaces.
- The Olympic Park. But go before June 2012, as I suspect you’ll find views will be shut off for security before the Olympics.
- The Imperal War Museum.
- The Kensington Museums; Science, Natural History and V & A. There’s even a good Carluccio’s nearby.
- The Victoria and Albert Embankments. At low tide, look for the beach at Tower Bridge.
- The North and East London Lines on the London Overground. They connect lots of small, good museums, Hampstead Heath, Kew Gardens and Crystal Palace. There is also a superb panorama of London in several places.
- The Docklands Light Railway. Take it from Bank to Canary Wharf and on to the Thames Barrier.
- St. Pancras Station. Even the French think it’s the best railway station in the world. It may not be by next year, as King’s Cross may outshine its neighbour.
- Green, Victoria and St. James’s Parks.
- The Regent’s and all the other canals that take you from Islington to Stratford and Docklands.
I suspect this list will grow.
I did like this bike though.
Mobile Low Carbon Tourist Office
Is this the first mobile low carbon tourist office?
Folding Stools at the British Museum
I saw these clever folding stools in the British Museum yesterday.
Folding Stools at the British Museum
I like these, as they are a simple design, that does what is needed without fuss. I didn’t use one, as I’m not that decrepit yet!
We need good design and the jobs it creates to get us out of the hole, that the clueless wunch of bankers dug for us.
Should Museums Sell Off Unwanted Art?
It is notr a sinmple question, but I’ll give a simple example concerning my council, St. Edmundsbury.
Mary Beale was the UK’s first professional female painter. She painted society and other portraits in the early seventeenth century. Twenty of her paintings survive and were given to the council some years ago. Only four are exhibited in a dark corner of Moyses Hall Museum. Compare this, with Ipswich’s superb treatment of their Gainsboroughs and Constables!
So if they were offered a sensible solution, where this unique piece of artistic history was loaned or even sold to say a new gallery in a town or city where they would be appreciated, they should take it. After all there are not too many successful female artists from that era and she derserves a lot better.
The Unusual Art Collector
I like art and have a few paintings, but quite frankly there are only two that I treasure. They are drawings and were both done by my uncle Leslie. I think one is my mother as a child and the other is his wife, who was also my mother’s and his first cousin. That doesn’t happen now, but two of my mother’s brothers married cousins.
But all the rest is for sale at the right price.
Last night though they told the story on The Culture Show of Tom Alexander, who was a shopkeeper on the Isle of Arran. He got a payment of £40 each year as a reservist and spent it on a painting of the day. He purchased a Lowry and a Hepworth to name but two. There has just been an exhibition in Edinburgh and it is described here.
Talk about a canny Scot!
Giving It To a Museum
Today I contacted The Centre for Computing History in Haverhill and later they collected some of my boxes of software. They may also take some of my old hardware, like a DecWriter, a very early and powerful HP Vectra and the Artemis 1000 system.
They certainly need help in all forms.
Geffrye Museum
Today I paid a visit to the Geffrye Museum, which is just a short walk from Hoxton Station on the East London Line.
It is a charming museum, which has a succession of interiors of tytpical English houses over the last few centuries.
The museum is well worth a visit.
Bury St. Edmunds Guildhall
The Trust that owns it is trying to raise money and decide what to do with building according to this report on the BBC web site.
They should at least use the building to house the Mary Beale pictures, which are hidden away in Moyses Hall Museum.
Health and Safety at the Tate Modern
The Tate Modern exhibition of porcelain sunflower seeds has had to be closed because of a possible health risk. This is not the first time, that these issues have occurred at the museum according to The Guardian. A friend actually got stuck in Doris Salcedo‘s crack in the floor.
Mary Beale was Disappointing
I mentioned Mary Beale in Suffolk Art and it says in the Public Catalogue for Suffolk, that there at least twenty of her portraits in the care of St. Edmundsbury Museums . Only four were on display in a rather dark corner and although I’m no expert, they looked like they needed some restoration. They certainly needed better labels.
If Ipswich can create a proper gallery for their collections in Christchurch Park, surely St. Edmundsbury can do the same. And they charge for entry, whereas Ipswich does not!
Perhaps, this is why none of my artist friends had ever heard of Mary Beale.
The Anonymous Widower 