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 .

used to go in laugharne castle when it was a ruin ...forbidden and fun for all that, totally overgrown also dylan thomas boathouse before it was done up for the public

What was it like then z?? Was it just abandoned? (The boathouse)

suedonim, next to Fitz park? erm....
/link{http://www.allerdale.gov.uk/main.asp?page=16/here it is}

here it is again

The Boathouse was just neglected and empty(probably quite dangerous I know the balcony verandah bit was scary)but we were quite naughty kids

Thanks, Gingerbear - it looks great, I'll have to remember that for next time we visit the Lakes!

Moondog, it probably was the same place. When I saw it was for sale all I could think of was how on earth would they'd get the cat's p*ss smell out of the floors as it must have permeated the rock!

The Witch Museum at Boscastle in Cornwall was fantastic and one of my favourites.

I don't know if they ever managed to re-open it again after it was washed away in that horrible flood.

The Grace Darling museum in Whitby is lovely. Lots of wierd random clutter vaguely connected to lighthouses.

There's also one in weymouth i think with titanic and other sea related stuff (could have been updated by now)

triceratops,wasn't she the girl who rowed out to sea and saved a lot of people from a shipwreck?
If so,fabulous!
Story really captured my imagination as a kid.

there's a museum dedicated to someone in London that is really tiny and basically in a house - you almost miss it because it's in a normal terrace street. Can't remeber any more details than that though.

The Horniman museum in Forest Hill in London used to be lovely and fusty, but it's gone all trendy and upmarket with an overpriced cafe now. Still got great dinosaur and arbitrary stuffed things though.

Oh,they've always got to bloody ruin it eh Caligula?

Death to trendy cafes and recessed lighting!!

not old and apparently award winning Celtica in machynlleth I found umm very odd..

I agree Z.
Don't live that far away from it either.
Bangor's tiny little museum is more worthwhile-faded and rather dusty but full of fascinating stuff (I recoil from the idea of any exhibition that 'interprets' events for me)such as weird curved spoons from the 19C designed to stop people using their left hands.

Me too

We were in Mozambique when I was about 13, and we went to the Natural History Museum in Maputo. It was actually closed, but as we were standing around outside, the caretaker came along and asked us if we wanted to come in and look round. It was so old and fusty it was amazing, I'll never forget wadering around in the gloom....there were even mice rustling in the dead grass in the displays

Ooh fantastic Wallace!
Went to a mad (but quite well known) one in St Petersburg full of weird scientific oddities that one of the Czars had collected-three headed calves and suchlike.

Oh and just remembered another barmy one in Kiev-fleas with tiny little crowns and shoes and things.(Think it was a silversmith showing off.)
You had to view them through a microscope.
Entire museum was the size of a living room natch.

And zippi,'award winning' is an epithet I regard with great suspicion.
Reminds me of a pub near me that has a huge banner up saying just that.Doesn't mention who thinks so though!

My dh loves museums and regularly takes the kids to them. Today we were in the car and is was raining buckets so he said, 'Don't worry. We can go to a Museum'. (Cheers)

Then my 7 year old daughter started crying.
'What's wrong?'
'I've kept this secret for years but now I have to say something. I hate museums'.

Booooo! The end of an era. She's begining to hate walks in the forest now too.

Enjoy it while it lasts. (Rocks in her chair with a knowing, toothless smile)

lol sm!

OMG H we missed it. I'll just ask him. All I know is he was in the title role. (ie The Dead)

He says 'yes. The nuke protester who dies very early on'.
Dammit! We missed it. Was he any good. I don't suppose you videod it?

compo,
do you mean Sir John Soane's museum? 18th c architect.

Germany is the place for fusty museums. Munich apparently has 80 museums!! they have night of the long museums twice a year, you buy a ticket for about 20 euros, the museums are open til 2 am and you visit as many as possible.

they have museums for EVERYTHING. I went to one last year in Kamp-Lintfort in north Germany, which is basically a collection of stuff they've found in the local coal mine - absolutely fascinating.