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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:
fearnelinen · 30/05/2011 00:59

There is dirt under the fingernails! Shock

muttimalzwei · 30/05/2011 04:24

It's great for kids and they have a fantastic shop. Lakeland pencils are the best! The Lakes isn't full of half wits with no idea about marketing, much as you may like to think it is! Mind you, a lot of the tourism marketing focuses on trying to attract the London pound as in 'yes you can get your posh coffees and ciabattas here too'. Not sure what's worse really...

muttimalzwei · 30/05/2011 04:31

While we're on the topic
the Bread Museum in Ulm and Wunderland (enormous scale model railway,boat,plane etc) in Hamburg. The Wunderland is so incredible, I am considering taking my kids on a weekend break to Germany to see it.

allhailtheaubergine · 30/05/2011 04:35

I've been to the Pencil Museum. Dh and I were making our way from the Lakes to London via the most amusingly named places I could find on the map and we passed it. We came to a screeching halt and reversed back up the lane.

THE SIGN FOR THE PENCIL MUSEUM IS IN THE SHAPE OF A PENCIL.

I loved it actually. I have a picture of me standing by the world's biggest pencil. And it wasn't a tenner to get in, I'm sure.

cumbria81 · 30/05/2011 06:46

The flagship Lakeland shop is in Windermere, not Keswick.

I've been to the pencil museum a few times...I love pokey little British tourist attractions. OK, so it's not the Louvre but it kills some time in the rain.

sandgrounder · 30/05/2011 06:48

En route from the Pencil Museum to the Southport Lawnmower Museum, why not take in Louis Tussauds in Blackpool and play guess who the wax slebs are supposed to be?

ProfYaffle · 30/05/2011 06:58

I have a huge soft spot for the pencil museum. I think it's very knowing and makes a huge amount of it's business from reaction like the op's. The visitor book is full of sarky comments about the fascinating nature of pencils. I love eccentric little places like this.

Original poster
BlooferLady · 30/05/2011 07:32

Fearne 'twas the website that first precipitated the hysterics - it's BEAUTIFUL isn't it?!

Prof I couldn't agree more - I think it's a fantastic bit of marketing and eccentricity. I'm absolutely serious that I want to go. I'm well up for the MN Tour of Peculiar Places Grin

OP posts:
HarrietJones · 30/05/2011 07:40

There's not a lot to do in the lakes when it rains, you seepeopke driving from one museum to another cos they only take an hour each

RottenTiming · 30/05/2011 07:53

Haven't read the whole thread so someone may have already made this point but Keswick is in the Lake District, it rains sometimes a fair bit and so although the scenery is beautiful, pencilling in a few indoor things to do on a wet day is sensible if you are heading there with children for a holiday. The website creators are probably safe in their rainy location assumption that it will draw in kids and adults with time on their hands.

I watched a fscinating episode if Auntie Mabel (with the dc of course) where she visited a pencil manufacturer and I'm sure it was the same one.

I have been to a worm place and a peanut place on my travels before dc.

Perhaps we should start a thread for bizarre but interesting little attractions around the UK. Do our bit for UK tourism. I'm looking for some in Norfolk for the inevitable wet days on our holiday this summer.

purepurple · 30/05/2011 07:53

sandgrounder, the waxworks in Great Yarmouth is much more fun. At Blackpool at least you get clues about who the models are supposed to be. At Great Yarmouth, the models are in what looks like somebody's house and it smells so dusty.

whyme2 · 30/05/2011 07:55

I really wanted to go to the pencil museum on a particularly wet camping holiday last summer. Dh was not to be persuaded. Sad

However we went to a fantastic museum in Kendal full of stuffed animals (complete with Dodo).

We have also been to the rope museum - thought it was in Derbyshire though?

Original poster
BlooferLady · 30/05/2011 07:58

I do think there should be a wry but warm-hearted book on small UK museums - in the town where I was brought up our local museum had a gigantic stuffed bear at the foot of the stairs, rearing up and swiping its paws at the ceiling, and a wasp farm thing that had a clear box where you could see them swarming in and out - it was chuffing brilliant. I haven't been in 20 years and I'm dying to go back. i think there was a Room of Glass Things too. I really hope it hasn't become all glossy and knowing - the dustiness was its charm!

OP posts:
bigTillyMint · 30/05/2011 08:01

What a great thread.

Am loving the website for the pencil museum - almost want to go up there just to go to the cafe see it.

Yes please! A MN tour of not-to-be-missed highlights of the UK Smile

bigTillyMint · 30/05/2011 08:03

I think I have been to a rope museum. Can't remember where though.
And Old Mother SHipton's cave in Knaresborough. I loved that Blush I was about 7 though!

MrsDistinctlyMintyMonetarism · 30/05/2011 08:10

I wanna go the Pencil Museum

stupid buggering Brisbane doesn't have a pencil museum. Sad

muttimalzwei · 30/05/2011 08:12

I've just been told that the pencil museum has moved. To Workington.

HarrietJones · 30/05/2011 08:17

Whyme- the stuffed animal museum is the 'Kendal museum' keep meaning to take dh cos he doesn't believe me.

TheFlyingOnion · 30/05/2011 08:18

Actually I went to the Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick (Lake District for you thick Southerners who don't own a road atlas) and its a fun day out.

Keswick is lovely, as is the whole of the Lake District.

You come across as a bit of a snob, tbh.

Original poster
BlooferLady · 30/05/2011 08:26

Oi Onion, I'm not a snob, take that back! And I haven't got a road atlas because I don't have a car, and I bet you don't know where Steeple Bumpstead is! And the whole thread people have been saying how lovely Keswick and the Lakes are, and the museum is being admired as much as teased. SO THERE.

OP posts:
Original poster
BlooferLady · 30/05/2011 08:27

PS People keep mentioning Auntie Mabel - whoozat?? Confused

OP posts:
ProfYaffle · 30/05/2011 08:31

I love Mother Shipton's cave too! I want to go to the waxworks in Yarmouth (pil live in Yarmouth) but I'm slightly worried the dodgy waxworks might scare the dc Gin

ProfYaffle · 30/05/2011 08:31

You've never seen Aunty Mabel? Shock Come Outside with Pippin and the plane? I always thought she was in the Pencil Museum too.

Threadworm8 · 30/05/2011 08:33

Bloofer, did you just say "Who is Auntie Mabel"?

Shock
purepurple · 30/05/2011 08:33

Auntie Mabel flies her plane and takes her dog everywhere she goes.
She once got stuck in the kitchen cupboard and was rescued by pippin and the fire brigade.
Come Outside, on CBBC.

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