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Museum of Costume (Bath)
by alfiepeaches
Me and my friend made a road trip especially to visit the Museum of Costume as she was doing a Romanticism inspired fashion project and we both have an interest in old style dresses from 1600-1800s and history. We live just outside Bournemouth and it took us about 2 hours to get there and we parked for free and caught a bus into the ... centre, from the centre of Bath it look us about 20minutes to walk find the museum, we didn't use a google maps or ask for directions as Bath is very well signposted and just by following these signs we got there very easily.
The admission fee is £7.50 or £15.75 if you want a combined ticket to see the roman baths too, our tickets cost about a £1 less as I had a student card and my friend had a national trust sticker from her car. You are then given an audio guide for extra information on the displays and clothes. We visited on a school day (the day we are not timetabled for) so it was pretty empty and we only saw about 10 other people during the tour. Everything is in a glass case and no pictures are allowed as the flash can fade the fabric of the clothes, although we were a bit naughty and still took pictures but with the flash off.
The first part of the museum is sport clothes from past Olympics and typical holiday clothes for hot and old countries across the decades. Some of these are quite interesting but some were a little boring for me but they are set out really clear with labels or what they are. The next part is the most exciting as it is the best of the 20th century dresses, they are all very beautiful and it's impressive to see how small the dresses are and you can imagine how heavy the dresses would have been. The audio guide was really helpful here giving a lot of interesting information on each dress. This led onto the another collection of 17th century gloves which were beautiful as they were so detailed.
The next section of the museum is dressing up! We found this really fun as the clothes are so different to what we wear now, we tried on different types of hats, riding jackets and our favourites were big hooped skirts and corsets (just managed to squeeze in!). As well as being fun to dress up and take funny pictures they are also quite informative because they are made to be the actual sizes and weights of the clothes from past eras so it gives you idea of what wearing them would have been like.
There was a large room with glass rooms full of many different old dresses for daywear, weddings and funerals. This room was quite dull as most of the clothes inside weren't on full view and were displayed as if they were hanging in a wardrobe or packed in boxes. This room also seemed especially dark too which made it quite hard to see. In the corner was a table with felt tips where you can leave postcards that feature a figure for children to draw their own dress designs on and then on the back to leave feedback of the museum.
The last part of the museum is the longest and is clothes that show certain styles like the 20s,40s, 60s which gave an overall style of each era which was quite interesting to see how fashion changed over the years and would be helpful for younger people becoming interested in fashion. There were different attire for musical genres and some outfits actually worn by some artists, although these weren't very impressive and I thought they looked pretty naff. There were also a large amount of outfits from a large variety of different designers from the 90s and early 2000s, I was at first really excited by this however most of the outfits on display seemed to be less popular from their seasons and didn't look that impressive.
The very last outfits you see are 'top trends' where the museum uses vintage clothes to recreate the current trends, at the time we went it was pastels and lots of flower prints. I really liked this idea however I think overall it just looked like a jumble sale of clothes all chucked on, there was the odd thing that looked really good though. You then finish the entire tour of the museum and can visit the gift shop. The gift shop is very small and very fashion orientated as you would expect. It had two walls full of different fashion, pattern and icon books which I really wish I had bought some money for as I really wanted some of them. There were a few books that contained high quality photos of many of the clothes in the museum which my friend bought as it was very good, especially for the price as it was fairly cheap. There was also usual museum merchandise like stationery, bits of jewellery, kids things and postcards. I didn't buy anything but would have liked to.
Overall I think I would recommend the Bath Costume Museum but only to people who really have an interest in fashion and costume as it is very informative with a large variety of clothes to see, very helpful for art/fashion students. Some of it can be quite boring however this may just be because I generally wasn't interested in some of the parts and found some a bit naff. I can see myself visiting again but only as research for my course not as a fun day out, it's always great to see things in person though, plus the exhibitions change on a regular basis. I wouldn't recommend it to people who have no interest in clothes or the history of clothes and costumes as they would find it boring and a waste of money. I do think£7 is a little expensive for what is on offer at the museum and the cost would be fairer at £5.
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Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (Glasgow)
by wigglylittleworm
Kelvingrove museum and art gallery has been on my "to visit" list for a long time. Last weekend we finally made the trip through to Glasgow and saw the museum which is in the heart of Glasgow and home to more than 8000 exhibits. The museum is set in a gorgeous sandstone building next to Kelvingrove Park with a bronze sculpture ... of St Mungo, patron saint of the arts, flanked by two women representing art and music. The site has limited parking as well as good public transport links. The museum is set over three floors although the lower ground floor houses the temporary exhibitions; when we visited it was 500 years of Italian Art which cost £5 for an adult to enter but the rest of the museum is free.
The ground floor is a huge light and airy space and was a hive of activity. The main gallery here shows all kinds of animal life. Huge stuffed animals, including an elephant and giraffe, take pride of place in this exhibition. The standard of the taxidermy is high, I have seen some pathetic looking specimens in the past but these animals were really lifelike. A second smaller gallery had loads of Scottish wildlife that a Glasgow kid will not see in their everyday life like red squirrels, golden eagles and the capperceily along with interactive displays. Kids will love the clear beehive where bees come from the outside via a tunnel and make honey. Evolution is covered in a brilliant section devoted to Darwin's life and work with skeletons which shows the advancement from primate to human so you can see evolution in action.
Moving through to a smaller gallery is creatures from the past. This dinosaur themed exhibition is fascinating and has full sized skeletons and fossils including a cast of a dinosaur footprint found in the Western Isles of Scotland. There is a lot of reading material here too and I was surprised dinosaur remains had been found in Scotland.
The highlight of the Ancient Egypt gallery is the huge stone sarcophagus of Pa-ba-sa dating from around 600BC. There is also a mummy displayed in a coffin as well as many smaller artefacts. The explanations about hieroglyphics were the best I have read and I started to understand the fascination that people have for the Egyptians. The exhibition itself cannot compare in any way to the superior exhibits in the National Museum in Edinburgh but is still a good one.
The central hall of the ground floor is a huge open space with a café selling the typical overpriced coffees, cakes and sandwiches. The Kelvingrove organ is a massive pipe organ on the second floor but it is here you can gather and listen to the daily concert. The organist played a series of popular classics on the day we visited, the music was not the best for the organ and some Bach would have been better but it was still enjoyable to sit and listen to it.
Thankfully the upper floor was a lot quieter than the ground floor with far fewer kids running around. This floor concentrates more on artwork although there is also a section on warfare which I only briefly looked at as it is not something I have an interest in. The artworks were varied from historical to modern and there was lots of sculpture as well as paintings.
Dali's Christ of St John on the Cross is the jewel in the art collection, bought in 1952 it has always drawn crowds eager to see it. The painting shows Christ on the cross from above and is in its own separate gallery with benches where you can sit and contemplate. It is an outstanding work of art that evokes a sense of wonder in the viewer and it is worth a trip to Kelvingrove to see this painting alone.
As we visited on a nice sunny day we enjoyed taking a picnic and sitting eating outside in Kelvingrove park and also bought additional refreshments from the small outdoor café. They were overpriced at £2 for a small cup of machine coffee but you have to expect that where they have a captive market.
I think I am spoiled in terms of museums after many visits to the Royal and National museum in Edinburgh. Kelvingrove is not nearly on the same scale in terms of size nor does it have the breadth of exhibits on offer but it is still a nice place to spend an afternoon but unlike the Edinburgh museums it is not somewhere you can return dozens of times and still not see everything. It was a little bit too child friendly for my liking with the ground floor in particular being full of exuberant children running around as I prefer quiet and calm. The teenagers enjoyed the visit just as much as the adults meaning that it is a good place to visit for young and old.
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The Long Shop Museum (Leiston, Suffolk)
by bungle82
We visited the Long Shop Museum whilst staying in Aldeburgh. We had been passed the museum several times as it is on the bus route from Aldeburgh to Saxmundham.
The museum is in Leiston in Suffolk and for around 200 years the name of the town was synomonous with engineering thanks to the Garrett works on the site of the ... museum.
The museum's website describes it as a "the story of a Suffolk industry, its town and its people" and that sums the museum up nicely as different parts of the museum concentrate on different things - the Garrett family, the works at Leiston, British engineering on a wider scale, local and social history and Leiston today where the nuclear power station Sizewell has taken over from Garrett's as the area's biggest employer.
There is lots to learn and I personally was staggered by some of the things I learned such as how much money the Garrett family put into the local area and infrastructure and how their legacy lives on, as well as the story of Elizabeth Garrett-Anderson who was Britain's first female doctor and Mayor!
On the day we visited, Leiston had been flooded a few days earlier and some of the rooms were being dried out so it was not very busy. However that was nice as we could really explore the musuem's workshops which I would imagine are much busier at weekends. As well as the displays and exhibits there is also lots of big machinery to admire - something I am sure that little boys would appreciate!
The staff in the museum are all volunteers and those we came into contact with were all very knowledgeable about the history of the works, and passionate about the museum. There is a small shop where souvenirs can be purchased, and it is not as overpriced as some gift shops we have been in!
We spent about two hours in the museum and it was time well spent learning about an industry we had no previous idea of.
Admission to the museum is £5.00 for adults, £4.50 for OAPs and £2.50 for children (with under 5s free). A family ticket is also available for £12 (2 adults and 2 children). With any ticket you get free entry for a year so it's quite reasonable (especially if you plan to come back again).
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