At the end of my trip I spent 2 days in London before catching my flight home. I was staying way out in the Docklands area of East London, so I spent one day in that area visiting the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the Fan Museum, and the Museum of London Docklands. My last day was spent in central London, exploring the University College London campus and visiting the British Museum. Unfortunately I didn't end up being able to meet up with Margaret; she just moved back to England a few weeks ago (where she did her MA last year; see my posts from Nov/Dec 2011 and July 2012 about meeting up with her in London and Bristol) but was gone on a trip to Turkey for all except the last day of my post-castle trip. We were supposed to meet up on my final day in London, but she found out at the last minute that she had to get back to Bristol for a meeting about an apartment. Oh well, next time :)
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| St Pancras train station |
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King's Cross station (there was a constant HUGE line at the "Platform 9 3/4"
spot with the trolley disappearing into the wall) |
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Cutty Sark tea clipper, formerly one of the fastest ships in the world, near
the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich |
The National Maritime Museum was very extensive, and much more kid-oriented than other museums I had been to recently. Their museum's topic is a massive one to cover- I can't imagine the meetings trying to decide what to focus on and include!
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First time I've ever seen this in a museum: instead of a video just having captions,
there's a superimposed video of a sign language interpreter too. |
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| Stained glass from the Baltic Exchange building |
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The whole museum had a "compass card" system, where
you take a card and then insert it into machines at different
exhibit sections that interest you. Later you can scan the
card to find out more about those stories. |
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| Compass card machine |
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| Great Map at the heart of the museum |
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| The perfect exhibit for you Kelsey! |
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| Winston Churchill re... the Arctic convoys during WWII. Very chilling. |
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| Demonstrating the harmful effects of too many touches to gilded objects. |
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A really interesting exhibit where the history of British seafaring was
categorized by emotions: Sadness, Aggression, Anticipation, Pride, Duty,
etc.. |
Just outside the Maritime Museum was Ship in a Bottle by Yinka Shonibare. It used to be on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square when I was in England in 2011. We studied it and the Fourth Plinth art scheme quite a bit in British Studies class, so I was really excited to find out that it was here.
Next door to the National Maritime Museum is Queen's House, which houses the Maritime Museum's collection of maritime-related paintings.
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| Queen's House staircase |
Just up the hill from the Maritime Museum is the Royal Observatory. The Observatory was based at the castle for many years, which is why you've seen observatory domes in so many of my castle photos- they now are used as a science centre for kids.
There was an hour-long line up to get pictures taken in the official Prime Meridian photo-op spot, but the line extended past where the lineup was so I took this picture instead (there's just no fancy writing on the ground next to it, like in the official section of line):
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| One foot in each hemisphere! |
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| The Prime Meridian photo-op spot |
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| Interactive table in the Observatory's museum about time |
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| Looking down at Queen's House from the Observatory hill |
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| the Gherkin and central London as seen from the Observatory hill |
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| St Paul's and central London as seen from the Observatory hill |
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18 years of research rendered unusable. That just seemed so tragic and
ridiculous that I had to take a photo so I'd remember it. |
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| 8-foot iron quadrant belonging to Halley, the second Astronomer Royal |
Also in Greenwich is the Fan Museum:
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| Fan with a clock |
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| Fan with a mask built in |
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| Musical instrument fan |
The Docklands area has been revitalized recently and is now full of construction and gleaming buildings. The Museum of London Docklands is a branch museum of the Museum of London in central London (which I wrote about here in September 2011). The Docklands museum focuses on the history of London as a port city, from the Romans to the present.
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| Model of the London Bridge in the 1500s |
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There were several extensive walk-through recreated areas-
reminded me of the Royal BC Museum and the Museum
of Civilization in Ottawa |
I was so struck by this (below), because I've never come across anything like it. At the end of the exhibit on London during WWII, there was a walled off area labeled "Quiet Space" for "reflection and remembrance".
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| Inside |
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| Outside |
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How have I missed the opportunity to take out money from a machine that
uses Cockney?! |
No one from the Museum Studies program at UCL was available to meet, because they're all on vacation or doing fieldwork. But I still had the chance to explore the campus :)
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Like Durham, the UCL Museum Studies program is part of the
Archaeology department. |
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| Kelsey, have you heard of this? |
Right now there is a major temporary exhibition at the British Museum, about Pompeii and Herculaneum. Unfortunately no photography was allowed in the exhibiton, so I just have photos from the rest of the museum. I was last here in summer 2012, when I met up with Kelsey and Kevin to see the temporary Shakespeare exhibit.
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| I wish I could see this! |
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I was reading this spring on the British Museum blog about the collecting
of artefacts relating to mobile money in Africa, so it was cool to see them in person. |
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The Beau Street Hoard, which the Roman Baths in Bath is saving up money
to buy (see my post on Bath from the field school's end-of-term trip) |
There will be one more post up tomorrow, with some photos of my final day at the castle (when pirate flags were flying from the battlements!)
