I love fusty little Museums!

[DaddyGhoul]

Fantastic. DS and I were just at the Midland Air Museum in Coventry (I'm actually on the sick but he Dr. has signed me off for ages and I'm up to 'light duties' I guess) and it was quite good. Loads of planes and cool cockpits you can get in and ds seemed to really like it.

I like places like that. It was wonderfully dead and it was just me, ds and a couple and their 18mth old.

It was full of old boys who can't hear and the place smelled all fusty and unused. I love places like that. It was full of old WW2 stuff and the old boys were dieing to tell you stories.

Conversations with these guys always makes me laugh:

Me: "it's nice you've opened up the plane for ds to play with the cockpit controls... he seems to be having a good time"

Old geezer: "yup..yup.. but you can't do this kind of thing on army bases, oh no. they open those places up and they can't let little ones play with the controls because I've got two words for you... EJECTOR SEAT! PRESS THAT AND IT'LL CRUSH THE KIDS VERTABRAE!.. yup yup"

Me: "he likes planes but he's mostly into cars. i'll have to pick him up a little plane in the giftshop"

Old geezer: "yup..yup.. CARS! CARS! THEY USED TO MAKE CARS HERE IN 143 PLANTS.. NOW IT'S ONLY ONE.. SEE! SEE! (pushing us toward the window to show us the Peurgeot plant across the road)... WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TOO Eh! EH!??"

great fun .

Oh me too DC!

Sweet talked my way into a mad little fort near where I live the other day. Guards the Menai Straits and was built in order to repel possible invasion by the Americans during War of Independence (only one ever built for that purpose in Europe.)

It's not a museum and is owned privately. Dh was groaning as I drove thought the gates (marked PRIVATE!!) at eight at night but fair play,the bloke who owned it was charming and took us on a complete tour,telling me stories and ghost stories the whole time.

I was thrilled to bits!

that sounds great! it's fun isn't it, especially on a day like this. it was hammering down with rain outside but i just sipped coffee and wandered around with ds for about 2 hours.

I like it when guys like what you've described are really keen to tell the story and show you around.

DC, you would love the army transport museum at Sandtoft (deepest darkest North Lincs) Sounds just like the one you mentioned.
My fave one was in Keswick - an old house filled with a wealthy victorian's collection of postcards, uniforms, assorted medical implements, stuffed animals, butterflies and dead birds - smelled of mothballs and was told lots of interesting things by the lady that ran it.

did you go in the vietnam bomber plane cockpit it was very evocative ..can't describe the experience

we went last year by chance

We once went to visit a convent in Morlaix, Brittany, which only opens to the public on one day of the year. The 'Mother Superior', or whatever, who was showing us around was SOOO overenthusiastic, it was hilarious, she was shooing us along like naughty schoolkids, while talking too much, then decided in her excitement to ring a big bell in the kitchens, right next to dp's head, he nearly had a heart attack, I nearly died laughing...

I know it's hardly fusty,but Imperial War Museum has a great exhibition on at the moment. Theme is escaping so it relates the stories of people in the world wars,has coded documents and stuff like a Monopoly set with hacksaws cunningly hidden in it.

Excellent

I like the pencil museum in Keswick too.

I want to go to all of these.

Oh me too I love places like that. Dss was a holy terror (in a nice sense) when little and loved climbing and getting hands on so museums like that were perfect as they loved to give the kids lots of attention. Always dragged him in moaning cos he didnt want to go and dragged him out moaning that he didnt want to go

Went into the Lumley chapel in Cheam the other day (oldest building the the burough of Sutton) and it was fab. happened to bump into the Vicar who let us in. Tiny little chapel but with so much history behind it. Actually been meaning to read up a bit more on it. Must go do that now.

I will be touring stately homes with old duffers coach trip before I know it.

that sounds great gb.

i used to go to one at niagara falls. it was off the beaten track and was full of dodgy displays of women in buckets being hurled over the falls and loads of stuff dead animals covered in dust and eroding away...

i went on a school trip when i was about 7.. returned when i was about 19 to find it hadn't changed one little bit and i clearly recalled many of the displays!

i also remember a weird little travelling museum that came through town in a caravan. it parked up in the fairgrounds parking lot and put out a sign 'admission for 50 cents'. what a bargain. it was choc full of cool stuff and old eskimo (sorry, very un-pc... inuit) artifacts.

stolen or possibly fake of course but very interesting for 50 cents!

Het teeavee,my next port of call will be the shrine in Treffynnon (Holywell)
Bizarrely it is minded by a couple from Mauritius and apparently full of old crutches,salipersand whatnot,joyfully discarded by the infirm after experiencing miracles there.

Not very Welsh at all eh?
(Mind you,you're probably jaded by all this stuff,surrounded as you are by Catholics.)

~tarantula opens word doc to take notes on places to vist.......keep em rolling in please.

Bugger,I missed that NG one on my trip there. That would have been sooooooooo up my street.

Ginger, coach tours sound good to me! I'll tell you something-much as i hate to admit it,after a year doing lots of NT properties,there is something very restful about being surrounded by civilised people....

(Gaaah,shoot me now before I start wearing pearls,voting Tory and buying the Mail!!!)

bugger, not army transport - trolleybus museum
think the army transport one is near Hull.

I have visited the well in treffynnon too, years ago - lots of gaudy glow-in-the-dark Virgin Marys for sale in those days. It's a v interesting site.

Castles, I love castles too. Little crumbling ones as well as huge regal ones. Wales and Northumbria are brill for castles.

This one was lovely

oh yeah! castles! the ruined ones are great because you can wander around to your heart's content and let ds just run around hiding and jumping about.

whoah! that's a really nice one!

Tattershall Castle had a great Medieval day for kids last year

... actually, we were in the tenby area last year and we didn't go to this one. we went to another one near there but i can't remember the name.

Amroth?

Dd and I went to the pencil museum a couple of weeks ago, it's so higgledy-piggledy. Where's the museum at Keswick? I'd have liked to see that one.

There's a fusty old museum place in Keighly, Yorks, full of stuffed animals, bric-a-brac, an apiary and in the garden, cages with live birds. Weird!

The strangest place I have ever been was the House in The Rocks (I think that was its name) in Knaresborough. It literally is a house carved out of the cliff face. We were shown round by a completely barmy middle-aged woman and it was infested with cats - honestly, I've never seen so many and it stunk of cat's p*ss. We wound up and down and in and out, ending up in the kitchen. She had a big chimney with an open fire, complete with witches cauldron, brewing up some noxious smelling substance. It was festooned with cobwebs and filth and cats peered at you in the half light from every shelf and corner. There was even a wax model of an old crone in a rocking chair, by the fire. My friend and I nearly died of fright when the crone suddenly snorted and shifted around in the chair - it was Mad-Middle-Aged-Woman's ancient mother!!!!!!! They must both be dead or incarcerated now as the place was for sale earlier this year.

Gosh,sd,that rings a bell!
I saw something like this (newly purchased) described in the propert pages of a newspaper about a year ago I think?
Sounds barking but excellent.