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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask if you've been to the Keswick Pencil Museum?

323 replies

BlooferLady · 29/05/2011 19:11

Oh! Oh! I am HOWLING with laughter! Grin Grin

They have the most fantastic website - it's priceless, I can't see through my tears -

From 'Plan Your Visit' - "Explore the museum before you come and discover all the great things to see and do. You can journey through the history of pencils and pencil making!"

It's only a tenner for a family ticket but for £15 you can visit the bungalow museum as many times as you like during the year! Grin

And the cafe is called SKETCHERS!!!!!

And there's a genuinely spine-chilling wax doll stuck helplessly in a cavern underground - WTF is he doing, mining for those erasers you stick on the end???

Reassuringly, they can take large numbers, and there's a Drawing Zone where you can get hands-on with the pencils

Oh Lord I'm laughing so hard I've nearly thrown up my prawns - surely some MNetter has been there? Is it as AWESOME as it looks?!

OP posts:
JemimaMuddleFuck · 31/05/2011 20:24

"A tapeworm across the front and you can feel it"

I read it as "feed It" and got a little bit excited.

fearnelinen · 31/05/2011 20:38

Sorry? What? The parasite museum is:
"a nonprofit, charitable organization. "
Didn't realise tapeworm needed our contributions!!!

5Foot5 · 31/05/2011 20:55

This place has become a sort of family joke to us as we go to the Lake District at least once a year and we always offer to take DD there if she misbehaves! We have never actually been but MIL says she was standing outside once when a bus trip came out and one old lady declared it was the best cup of tea she had had in her life!

Anyway we were actually in Keswick last weekend and they were advertising a free event on Sunday. We managed to contain our excitement. Keswick is a beautiful enough place that it would have to be raining pretty damn hard to persuade us to go to the pencil museum rather than just stick on our waterproofs and go for a walk.

"Save your money and visit The Cars of The Stars Museum at the same place instead"

We spotted a sign to this down a side street but thought it might be some really pathetic shed with a few cars or pictures of cars in. Is it?

Original poster
BlooferLady · 31/05/2011 22:17

Oh no Sad

If we organised our bus tours instead of just talking about it this sort of thing wouldn't happen to our small museums Sad

OP posts:
Original poster
BlooferLady · 31/05/2011 22:18

I am confident the tapeworm museum will always remain open...

OP posts:
SpringHeeledJack · 31/05/2011 22:46

Oh god, I love this stuff

when on holiday in the UK (especially in caravans) dp and I like to fight over the stack of leaflets from local attractions

on one memorable holiday on the Norfolk Broads (about 35 leaflets, some very old) we dealt out the pile of leaflets and tried to trump each other- the one with the shittest attraction/s won

it was fuuuuun

but then, we were very, very drunk

BelleDameSansMerci · 31/05/2011 22:55

You see, the problem with Norwich, Bloofer, is that the Castle Museum is actually quite, genuinely good (or it was over 30 years ago when I went on a school trip). This place however may be more your cup of tea...

tig I didn't know , I'm one too.

BelleDameSansMerci · 31/05/2011 22:57

Or you could experience all the fun of the workhouse here Hmm

Love this thread, btw.

Ariesgirl · 31/05/2011 23:10

Ladies: I give you The World In Miniature

DilysPrice · 31/05/2011 23:37

We've been to the Pencil Museum. And it wasn't even raining! We enjoyed it - we still have photos somewhere of very small DCs next to the giant pencil.

But it is not as good as the Bakelite Museum near Taunton, because that has rabbits in the garden and, crucially, does a really lovely cream tea.

fortyplus · 31/05/2011 23:46

The worst tourist attraction in the whole world was Seahouses Aquarium - it even had a sign up at the entrance saying they wouldn't refund your entry fee and frankly I can only imagine they must've had a lot of requests! A whelk in a basin was about as interesting as it got! Grin

Even now the Seahouses website doesn't exactly offer much encoursgement as you can hardly read it!

Punkatheart · 01/06/2011 10:18

'A whelk in a basin.'

WOW! These museums are ROCKING!!

This makes me want to put on a green mac, stuff my pockets with Kendal mint cake and stride across the country...

Goldrill · 01/06/2011 10:36

Maryport aquarium is fab! My mum likes it so much she has a season ticket! And the cafe does really good cakes, and the chef is thai and does thai evenings. And that's pretty damn bohemian for west cumbria.

LadyBeagleEyes · 01/06/2011 11:46

Yes, waltzing waters has been mentioned a couple of times on this thread (smile).
I went once on a school trip (as a parent) and it is dire so your dh is right.
Half an hour looking at coloured water going up and down to some crap music is half an hour of your life you will never get back!
Airesgirl, I've always wanted to go to one of these miniature type places.
I bet you can pick up a nice fridge magnet too.

kreecherlivesupstairs · 01/06/2011 12:29

Anyone ever visited the museum of wallpaper just over the border from Switzerland in France. Me and DD almost went one day. It was a toss up between the happy and mad dancing club and the wallpaper museum.
The tragedy of it was the happy and mad dancing club was actually a brothel and closed to boot.

EldritchCleavage · 01/06/2011 12:37

YOP, you need this book.

EldritchCleavage · 01/06/2011 12:38

Sorry, that's OP, not YOP!

SpringHeeledJack · 01/06/2011 12:40

roffle at 'whelk in a basin'

you can't tell by the names, though. As kids on holiday in Wales, we complained bitterly at being dragged to the Lechwydd (?? Blush) Slate Museum in the pissing rain

it was a mine and everything

brilliant

Casserole · 01/06/2011 16:20

I am gutted that people have beaten me to both Barometer World and the Shell Grotto at Margate. They are the most funz since.... well... you know what I mean.

flyingmum · 01/06/2011 16:37

I think I have a high boredom threshold but I am married to an organist and do seem to spend lots of time looking in cathedrals and churches and hanging around organ lofts so places like the Pencil museum were OKish because they were warm.

I Liked the pencil museum! (at least I think I did but it was a very long time ago - BC) I also really liked the bobbin museum (I kid you not) also I think in the Lake District. I even thought the slate museum was OK although the chap was very grumpy. The National Coal mining museum is good but a bit scary when you go down the mine - likewise - very grumpy miner.

However, two that stick in the mind. The organ museum (yes really) in Switzerland that we discovered by chance and made my husband really really happy and the odd little sea life place in Granville in France also housing a peculiar selection of artfully placed shells.

Sparklies · 01/06/2011 16:40

Have been to Keswick several times but never managed the Pencil Museum. I really should one day. I have, however, been to this rather random museum in Keswick: keswickmuseum.webs.com/. It was quite odd.

There is the Fan museum in Greenwich here which I have also not gone to. Apparently it's better than it sounds.

I still remember at 16 going to a Tobacco museum in France whilst on a school trip. Yes, there was a gift shop. Still, I guess were were 16, not 15..

Actually give me obscure English museums over Stately Homes any day.

ZXEightyMum · 01/06/2011 16:51

I've just returned from Walsall where there is a Leather Museum which sounds much more interesting than it actually is.

Pencil Museum is definitely on my list now.

SuePurblybilt · 01/06/2011 16:53

I was going to suggest Barometer World but I see it has been done. But while you're down here gnome sanctuary.

I have been to the shell grotto at Margate. It smells.

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