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Every English child grows up knowing that Hadrian built a wall to keep the Scots out.
But very rarely do we learn anything more about Hadrian. In fact, he’s a fascinating character - a very complex man who left his mark on the city of Rome and on the Roman world.
He didn’t just build the famous […]
You might think a museum of waterworks sounds rather dull. But Victorian London excelled in the creation of excellent waterworks - Bazalgette’s huge sewers, fine pumping stations and public fountains - and it’s a heritage that deserves celebration, and gets it at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.
The museum is set in a superb Victorian pumping […]
One of my favourite museums in London is the one I consider the most truly macabre. It’s not the London Dungeon or a torture chamber in the Tower - it’s the museum at Westminster Abbey with its funeral effigies of English Kings.
There seems to have been a tradition of displaying the monarch’s body openly in […]
The Museum of London has just opened a new exhibition on Jack the Ripper and the East End.
Rather than trying to solve the problem of just who the Ripper was - Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, Lewis Carroll, Queen Victoria’s surgeon Sir William Withey Gull, Walter Sickert - the exhibition looks at the human […]
The British Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum - London is stuffed with big, impressive museums.
But it’s sometimes the quirky little museums that are more fun to visit. No queues, no throngs of tourists on a schedule, and a chance to see some very unusual things.
I like the Fan Museum in Greenwich. As far […]
This splendid crucifixion painting is on show now in the British Museum (which will be holding an Ethiopian Day on May 3rd).
It’s just been restored, and it’s on show together with a reconstruction of the colours as they would have been when it was freshly painted - vibrant as it is, the original has faded.
Just […]
A quirky exhibition at the British Museum shows you more portraits of Chairman Mao than you can shake a Long March at.
‘Icons of Revolution’ in Room 69a is an exhibition of Mao badges. While western teenagers were pinning CND badges, anarchy pins, or university clips to their denim jackets, in China the compulsory lapel badge […]
I grew up with Victorian toys. My grandfather had a zoetrope - a wonderful little machine; you put a specially bought strip of drawings or photos into the circular tin holder, and spun it round, and if you looked through the slots in the tin, you’d see the drawings spring to life. Granddad even drew […]
Just a few steps away from the Albert Hall is a fantastic and little known museum. If you’re interested in classical music, it’s a fascinating place to visit - the Royal College of Music’s Museum of Instruments.
Want to see one of the oldest keyboard instruments in existence? You can - a clavicytherium from the fifteenth […]
Tucked away just off Bartholomew Lane in the City is one of London’s oddest museums - the Bank of England museum.
It’s got all kinds of intriguing things. A wonderful Heath-Robinson-like sovereign weighing machine for instance - which both speeded up the process of weighing the gold coins, and greatly improved accuracy. I looked at it […]
A visitor’s and resident’s guide to London - events, attractions, art, ’must sees’ and offbeat sights, restaurants and pubs, and how to get around.
Written by Andrea Kirkby [email] for b5media.
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