The Late Shows 2014

I have now had a few weeks to calm down about The Late Shows 2014. My Twitter feed (@MuseumWalkerIan) was pretty busy over the course of the two nights, but this blog affords me the chance to say a little more than 140 characters at a time! So let’s start at the very beginning because, after all, it’s a very good place to start.

After downing tools on Friday evening, I walked from the Haymarket through to Shieldfield. The Biscuit Tin Studios were not a listed venue this year, so I kicked off my own personal experience of the year’s event at Holy Biscuit. Even before entering the converted church building, there were drop in activities upon its front lawn in the form of two sets of four chalkboards, all hinged together to form columns which ask visitors to chalk up an item on their bucket lists. Can’t conjure up that image? Well, a picture is worth a thousand words:

   
Inside the building itself, the art exhibitions were based around alternative representations of Newcastle, through photography, comic book imagery, montages and even a faux board game based around surviving the city’s nightlife. It was all very inventive, and the paper gift-bag with promotional flyers and other assorted goodies proved useful as I collected further bumph throughout the evening. It was also where I picked up my first glowstick of the evening! I try not to hoard them, given their popularity, but I always manage to end up with 2 or 3, pretty much by simply not paying attention to what I’m doing!

I couldn’t visit Holy Biscuit without stopping by The Biscuit Factory along the way. If I were a rich man (durdle-durdle-durdle etc), then I would certainly furnish whatever lavish Geordie residence I subsequently bought with at least something from the Factory, as I always see something that I like on display. I also withheld some glee at the descent into the lower quarters were the artist studios were, not least because of the potential for free wine. A single glass of rosé later – I had to pace my evening after all – and I had circled the various workshops, ranging from a pungent oil painting room to a photography project which I somehow didn’t realise was going on. I learned later from a friend’s Facebook that it was. D’oh.

Over the railway bridge, I noticed from my Late Shows brochure that there was a new venue to visit before passing The Tanner’s Arms and heading down the Stepney Bank - St Dominic’s Priory. As I’m not a Catholic, I haven’t had a reason to visit St Dominic’s before, but the Late Shows gave me that reason. In I walked, greeted by both the sound of soft organ music and two sets of volunteers. As well as the expected volunteers wearing Late Shows-branded black t-shirts, there were also members of the congregation on hand to go over the programme for the evening’s events. So I had a sit down and enjoyed the ambience for a few minutes before scoping out a local school’s art exhibition, which was displayed down one side of the church. I was also approached by the priest who sounded delighted that their bid to be a Late Shows venue had been accepted and this was subsequently the first time St Dominic’s had participated in the event. This left me thinking about how, and why, there were subtle differences in the venue line-up year upon year, which had genuinely never crossed my mind before.

This would be reinforced as I started down Stepney Bank: Roots & Wings were missing. Oh, they hadn’t done the Enchanted Door routine since 2011, but the group had always had a presence within the Ouseburn for the two subsequent years. At least this year there was sign explaining that their premises were being refurbished, keeping visitors in the loop. Metaphorically shrugging, I continued down into valley and headed towards Northern Print. And as I turned a corner and headed towards the door, I found myself looking at a familiar face from my days at The (Renaissance North East Museums) Hub.

Anita had opposite me for the majority of my time at The Hub Learning Team’s office within Segedunum (#45 in my Index). She had also been massively pregnant, and her maternity leave coincided with the end of my fixed term contract there. I had seen her and baby son since then when going back to visit the team, but as the team started to drop in numbers, and my visits came to an end, Friday evening must have been the first time I had seen Anita in about 3 years. And I had to do a double-take when I spotted her, for the sole reason that she was now in a wheelchair. But we had a very upbeat conversation, catching up upon what the other was doing. I recommended St Dominic’s before wishing her and her companion (whose name escapes me – that’s the pitfall of leaving this write up a few weeks, I guess) all the best, and turning back to the printworks.

This year provided me a genuinely new experience: visiting Northern Print when it wasn’t rammed with visitors. I remarked as much to the Late Shows volunteers there, before considering it fortunate timing and proceeding through the building without a queue ahead of me. Initially, I had gone in knowing what to expect; after all, how do you change up what can be exhibited within a workshop filled with large printing machines? The answer came from the volunteer at the bottom of the stairs, who noted that the disabled toilet had been converted into The Cistern Chapel by the satirical artists Modern Toss, featuring a series of comedic prints utilising obscene language. Particularly funny was “The Periodic Table of Swearing”, which I believe can be bought from their website. And it’s my birthday next week....

A hearty chuckle later, I descended into the Ouseburn proper, where I soon caught sight of The Time Bandits; again, regaling the patrons of both The Cluny and The Ship Inn with their Jack the Ripper show. Sidestepping them, I moved towards Ouseburn Farm, whose catering sorted me out for my evening’s sustenance. I just hope the burgers weren’t produced on-site.

Passing through the denizens sitting outside The Cluny, I then turned into 36 Lime Street Studios and explored its many floors for art, again enjoying my climb to Jim Edwards’ studio at the very top of the building. Next door at Seven Stories (#144), after briefly being confused by two volunteers addressing me at once, leading to a moment of weirdness between all three parties, I quickly headed to the stairs and descended to the Creation Station on the bottom floor. Here, I saw children being guided through colouring activities by staff dressed up as literary characters. This would be the theme throughout the seven floors, as literary characters milled about the frankly stunning exhibitions this year: Moving Stories: Children's Books from Page to Screen in particular stretched across two storeys. The uniqueness of the venue also allowed for the Artist’s Attic to put on shows for its audience, as can be seen here:

Once I had had my fill of children’s literature, I headed south down Lime Street towards the Tyne. There were two further venues I would not be able to experience as I passed. The first was Ouse Street Art Club, whose mobile of alcohol, videogames and table tennis was nowhere to be seen. The other was Victoria Tunnel, the famed tunnel that leads from the Ouseburn to deep beneath the Great North Museum: Hancock in the Haymarket. Obviously, that hadn’t gone anywhere, but the Tunnel operates on a tour basis and visitors who want to experience it have to book in advance. I never do and therefore have never got to experience it. And tunnels do count in my Index, as evidenced by my trip to The Tar Tunnel (#155) in Ironbridge Gorge. At the end of Lime Street, I came to a dilemma: I can never remember the best way to get to The Toffee Factory from that spot. Usually because the upper floors that are adjacent to the road bridge over the Ouseburn canal are usually blocked off by security. This year I decided to get there by walking by the canal path....only to find it fenced off for further construction work. Another year of dashed experimentation!

Eventually getting there by circling the Tyne Bar, The Toffee Factory had a swing theme with costumes, cocktails and...dance lessons. A mixture of fun and awkwardness, I formed part of the crowd and drank in the atmosphere rather than the cocktails. Whilst there, I saw Lauren, who had previously co-ordinated volunteers back when I had been one in 2011, so we briefly compared notes for the evening before I let her get back to her friends, who had no idea who I was! I have yet to reach the height of fame where people point at me in the street and shout “Hey, it’s that guy! That guy who sometimes goes to museums and writes about them even less!”

Getting to the River Tyne itself, I noticed that, discounting Victoria Tunnel, I had hit pretty much every Ouseburn venue, save for three places. Three places I had never been to before, for that matter. With that in mind, and it being 9:30pm, I decided I would seek to correct that. Now, the unlucky part of this mystery trinity which did not receive my patronage was Wychcraft Furniture, as a) the brochure did not make it sound very engaging, and b) it was further up the valley and would mean re-tracing my steps. So I proceeded the short distance along the Tyneand made my first ever visit to The Cycle Hub. I could speak about its engaging design competition (posters for the Tour de France stages in Yorkshire which visitors were encouraged to vote on), or the uniqueness of the venue itself. But moreover, it provides some stunning views of the Tyne:

 

The remaining venue, which was providing quite the Twitter buzz, was the Mushroom Works, another artist studio. The only downside was its location, which is not so much a glib dismissal of Byker (which I’m sure has its charms [now, that’s a glib dismissal!]) as a comment on being a 5-10 minute walk away along the river. Most people were sensible and made use of the free shuttle bus. I was not so sensible and opted to make that journey on shanks’ mare instead. Upon reaching Mushroom Works, I had a look around and liked what I saw, with the fairy theme proving very popular. There was the option of a drink for the road, but as I would be walking home to Heaton, I opted to forgo it and begin my trek home.

After an exceedingly good night’s sleep (all that walking paying off, not least those stairs at 36 Lime Street), I had a leisurely Saturday by all accounts. It was only around 4pm I noticed a line on the front of the brochure. Whilst Newcastle and the Ouseburn would be opening their doors at 7pm as per usual, Gateshead would be getting the jump on them by opening up at 6pm. Not only that, they’d also be offering special orange glowsticks! That appealed to me more than it should do a sane man and I immediately started preparing my dinner. I had resolved to walk the event again and it would take me 45 minutes to get from my house to the BALTIC. Moreover, it was a great excuse for me to start the evening in Gateshead as I had continually overlooked it over the past few years for reasons of proximity. Indeed, I doubt I will ever take in the Shipley Art Gallery for future Late Shows, given how far away it is. Unless I take a bus, I guess. Anyway, Saturday.....

The BALTIC has become one of the iconic images of the Quayside, and I do like to stop in whenever I find myself down by the Tyne, even though I can’t technically add it to the journals. After collecting my orange glowstick, I took the lift up to the highest exhibition floor and worked my way down, after a cursory glance from the viewing platform. The main floors were playing host to the work of New York artist Lorna Simpson, which closes on 22 June. The exhibition mixed photography, drawing and videos, which ranged from gold-clad dancers to mirror image chess and a man being looped whilst whistling, so it’s fair to say that it was diverse. There were other exhibitions as well, such as the Near Here contemporary sculpture display from Swedish artist Nina Canell, but they didn’t resonate with me quite as much. So once I had had my fill, I moved on and up the bank to the BALTIC’s equally photogenic neighbour The Sage. It was too early in the evening for the featured entertainment to have started, so instead of watching jazz ensemble ‘Dropping Bombs’ perform requested tracks, I watched their sound check instead whilst planning the rest of my route around Gateshead. And that didn’t sound bad!

 

St Mary’s Heritage Centre was a genuine shock, on the basis that I had never heard of it before. This could easily have been in Journal #2 (“The Sunny Book”) if I had come across it before, but every time I have walked past it en route to the Sage, I must have thought I was simply walking past a very well-placed church! Based within a church building, large spaces had been set aside for the drop-in visitor activities, which had a Hollywood movie feel. For fans of Ghost, there was a potter’s wheel in the upper area near the main entrance, whilst the central space had a number of visitors cutting up magazines in the name of arts & crafts. I had one eye on the standing display boards and how they chronicled the history of Gateshead, but I quickly reminded myself that this would have to be added to the journals at a later date. Yet again, The Late Shows had unearthed another cultural hidden gem. Or at the very least, spelt out that the wood I couldn’t see for the trees did actually exist.

That would turn out to be the high point of my time in Gateshead. After somehow negotiating the major roads of Gateshead to get to the edges of the town, the nearest attraction were shows being put on by the Lawnmowers Theatre Company. Unfortunately these shows were  starting on the hour every hour and I had arrived at 7:30pm. Cursing my timing, I headed next door to the Old Town Hall. This was also show-based, not least with the Time Bandits prowling about, but I had managed to miss these as well! I had the option of going downstairs and looking into the studios of the East Street Arts collective, but everyone else had had the same idea in the lull between shows. I had a rough schedule to stick to, so I exited and headed for the Railway Bridge to get back into Newcastle. There are more famous bridges over the Tyne, but a) the Railway Bridge was more direct for the route I was taking, and b) has the unusual custom of couples leaving personalised padlocks along certain railings as a symbol of their relationships.

Stepping off the bridge, I was now back opposite The Castle Keep (#104), which was clearly quite popular given the lines of people waiting to get into the building stopping only to let a separate line of people to come out of the keep. No Time Bandits here – in the Great Hall was a musical quartet with two ladies in their autumnal years singing “California Dreaming” in full acapella. I didn’t linger. Excitingly, the keep’s neighbour - The Black Gate - which opens to the public later this year, was using The Late Shows as a preview event. Like the Lawnmowers Theatre Company, visitors were being let in on the hour, and as luck would have it, it was now 8pm. However, the First Come, First Served rule would be my undoing here and the queue for the tour was pretty substantial. Still, patience is a virtue and I need only wait a month or two more before I can assess The Black Gate for myself in my own time. And that’s pretty exciting!

Continuing on my route, I headed for Westgate Road, as that would eventually lead me up to Discovery Museum, via a few other notable sites. As it happened, the Literary & Philosophical Society was not a Late Shows venue this year, but its neighbour The Mining Institute did not disappoint. Not only was it opening up more rooms than ever before, it was also playing host to local circus outreach troupe “Let’s Circus”. In that my evening had been somewhat whistlestop so far, I allowed myself a fair chunk of time enjoying the surreal nature of watching performers make use of such a venue to perform their revue acts. The majestic main hall was used for aerial rope dancing (see below), whilst the grand lecture theatre was used for the one-woman act “The Good Wife”, whilst the framed images of former Institute dignitaries had been modestly vandalised with clown stickers!

Onwards, I headed west and stopped into Newcastle Arts Centre. As well as having a look around its main gallery space, I headed up to the mezzanine. Sophie Foster, the artist whose NEST project had been on display at Ouseburn Farm the previous year, was delivering drop-in activity sessions involving “tangrams” – Google it. Opting not to cut out shapes and play with glue alongside children, for self-esteem reasons, I instead played about with the larger pre-cut shapes on a separate table and took a picture for posterity.

After a chat with Sophie, having not met her before, I pressed on towards Discovery. But before I entered TWAM Central, I stopped by the Globe Gallery. Here, the main exhibition I saw was based upon artist Ken Byers and his impressions of the Swan Hunter’s cranes, which were previously dotted alongside the Tyne at Wallsend. Said impressions were not just charcoal renderings hung on the wall, but the gallery’s basement featured a motion-sensor projection which looked at the crane based artwork.

Hopping across to Discovery Museum (#98), I saw Anita once more, stationed beside the main desk near the entrance. After sharing a laugh at the bus-like nature of our recent reunions (twice in two days after no contact for years), I made my way up to the Great Hall to scope out the theme of this years display. Once again, much like my first experience of The Late Shows in 2010, it was giant game-based, although this year’s iteration had inflatable based cages and games, not unlike something they’d use on CBBC shows of my era, such as 50:50 or Get Your Own Back. Moreover, I saw someone who I very much associated with Giant Games – my former colleague Claudia, who had been the Family Learning Officer at the Hub. My favourite memory of Claudia was that she had made sure that everyone who came into the Hub, for however long they were associated with the team, attempted to learn how to juggle! As I had done with Anita the previous night, I swapped notes with Claudia and found out what she had been up to, before talking about how my museum project was going; the Hub were responsible for me seeing a good few museums and heritage sites for the 14 weeks I was with them.

Before leaving, I made sure I headed to A Soldier’s Life and took this picture for my friend Dan (the story as to why was in my previous blog post):

 

As I left Discovery, the clock was striking 10pm.  Unless you heading to World Headquarters to party well into the night, the cultural venues would finally be shutting their doors at 11pm. In that I had walked from Heaton to the Gallowgate via Gateshead, clubbing was not even a consideration. I simply wanted to finish up at GNM Hancock before the night was over. So, earbuds in, I started making my way up to the Haymarket. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a tad self-conscious as I walked up Percy St, as I was taking a shortcut past a number of well-patronised boozers, whose punters were unlikely to have seen many people walk past wearing a glowstick around their neck. Moreover, I was feeling quite tired. I had not indulged in any drinks over the course of the evening, and whilst alcohol would have hardly helped my energy levels, I hadn’t even indulged in a cup of tea either.

So it was not the Museum Formerly Known as the Hancock that I made a beeline too. Instead, I stopped by its sister site GNM: Hatton, as I had been tipped off on Twitter about its free juice bar. The museum was somewhat quiet in terms of numbers given the time of night, but there was a party atmosphere near the juice bar, as music was playing through a large speaker set. After casting my eye over the many plastic juice cartons, I picked up the Raspberry flavoured drink, jabbed the pointed straw through the plastic lid and drank in those sweet, sweet e-numbers! After a sit-down within the adjacent gallery, I had a brief wander and found a learning officer sat amongst now empty activity tables. I declined her offer to have a go at whatever it happened to be – at that moment, I just wanted to get over the finish line. And have another Raspberry juice. Armed with a second carton, I found myself particularly engaged with the photography exhibition based around Marilyn Monroe. Yes, she was a very photogenic woman, but I found the labels and panels to be just as interesting as they told stories about particular aspects about her life.

With half an hour left, I made it to GNM: Hancock (#102), arriving just after TWAM head honcho Iain Watson had entered. The newly  refurbished museum had opened its doors just prior to me starting my MA course, so I was no stranger to the museum. In fact, if the mood takes me, I sometimes toddle across there on my lunch break as I work just over the road from there. But the one thing I was determined to see was the touring V&A Museum of Childhood exhibition Magic Worlds, which is on until 22 June. The temporary exhibition space was transformed into a variety of linked spaces, taking in various thematic elements of children’s stories, be it in literature or on screen. Case in point, a personal highlight was seeing video footage of Sooty & Sweep, even if it was with the current bloke rather than Matthew Corbett.

Once I had encountered the Magic World, I took a stage exit left and vamoosed, making one final walk back to Heaton. As I walked home, I counted the number of places I had stopped by over the two nights: 21. Out of 50 venues, I’d managed 10 in the Ouseburn and another 11 that night. Could I have seen more? Theoretically, it must be possible, but the trade-off would be that by experiencing everything, you would simultaneously have no time to really experience anything when there. I spent a lot of time in the Mining Institute and probably spent more time than most at Newcastle Arts Centre through taking part in an activity, but I’m so glad that I did take the time, after having breezed through Gateshead as quickly as I had.

In fact, Gateshead was probably the only down note of the weekend. The concept of starting earlier and having unique glowsticks was a great selling point for me, but The Sage didn’t seem ready for an early event and the fact that the attractions at the two central Gateshead venues were not drop-in in nature, relied on good timing on the visitors’ part. If I were to put my finger on what I think is the central appeal of The Late Shows, it’s the accessibility aspect of the event. The idea that someone can just walk into a place they wouldn’t normally visit, at an hour which they wouldn’t normally visit said place, and get caught up in what’s going on. I understand why certain events need to be staggered – shows need time to build an audience, tours need to account for the number of people involved, and so on – but I think the best attractions are those that cater to the visitor at their own pace.

I think I’ve typed all I can possibly type about The Late Shows at this point! It’s an event I’m very passionate about supporting and I think it’s a credit to the organisers, the participating venues and, most of all, those who volunteer their time to make it such a success. Moreover, it’s a great showcase of Tyneside at its best, which you can’t always say about Newcastle on Friday and Saturday nights, especially around the Bigg Market. So if you have never been to Newcastle before, or for a long time, and would like to see its cultural side at its best, I’d recommend you pencil in a weekend in May 2015! Barring a massive shift in the status quo, I know that’s where I’ll be!

Blog posts on the horizon!

Hello all!

Rather than let this small corner of the internet sit unloved and dusty, I have resolved to give blogging another go.

My previous plan - of just using this platform to digitise my journal entries - was too difficult given that I have so many demands on my time and transcribing old entries is somehow more difficult than sitting down and tapping away on the keyboard. I'd hope I'd be able to pepper the new content with these entries every now and again, but ultimately, this blog would not be feasible if I were going to stick to my original mission statement.

So, the plan is to update the blog weekly at the very least for the next eight/8* entries. This week, I have posted my memories of The Late Shows 2010-13, and the follow up blog post will be on this year's Late Shows, which passed this previous weekend. After that, I want to write about the last 7 places that I have added to my journal index, which were the seven places I visited on my recent holiday. These are, in order:

190) Sudbury Hall and the National Trust Museum of Childhood, Sudbury
191) Fort Nelson, Fareham
192) Andover Museum and Museum of the Iron Age, Andover
193) Hughenden Manor, High Wycombe
194) Snibston Discovery Museum, Coalville
195) Nostell Priory, Nostell
196) The Workhouse, Southwell

After that, I want to interact with people who read this blog. So what I thought I'd do is get any commenter's choice of venue from the places I have been to, and write about it. Either pick a number at random, or go through the list alongside my Google Map and pick out the museum, heritage site or visitor attraction you want to read about. Once I have the number, I will write up my anecdotal memories of the place - at what pace, I'm not sure, but we'll see how the experiment goes!

All comments and advice welcome!

Ian


*I never know what is the better way to write a number, which is why I tend to switch it up between the digit and the number's spelling. You'll see that a sentence or two along when I do that with the number 7 - and in this sentence as well! Apologies in advance if that's a punctuation no-no which is going to annoy you.

The Late Shows pre-2014

I can credit two events for revitalising my commitment – such as it is – to this blog. The first was my recent domestic holiday, which I started a month ago. I added 7 new museums and heritage sites to the index for my journals, despite the pre-existing backlog, and I want to blog about all 7 very, very soon. The second event happened just this past weekend: The Late Shows.

Come September, I will have lived in Newcastle for 5 years. I moved up here to pursue museums as a career, and whilst fate has played out slightly differently, nothing reconnects me more to that original purpose than this weekend in May, as part of the wider national Museums at Night event. And what a wonderful idea – opening up a cultural venue after hours and enticing people in with special events. If, like me, you work regular weekday hours, your museum-visiting time is curtailed to holidays, weekends and, if there’s one nearby, maybe lunch breaks. There are a whole range of impracticalities relating to opening up cultural venues in the evenings all year round, but for one weekend a year, people have the opportunity to drop in and see what their local museums have on show.

The dust has yet to settle on the 2014 Late Shows, so whilst I gather my thoughts on this year’s offering, I thought I’d write a prelude about my past experiences with the event, and how they opened my eyes to what was truly around me on Tyneside.

My first exposure to The Late Shows was in 2010, whilst I was still sitting my MA Heritage Education and Interpretation course at Newcastle University. That weekend in particular saw me hosting my friend Dan, who was my former housemate from our undergraduate days at Lancaster University. He had driven up from Lancashire, and, as I did not have a set of wheels of my own, we decided to spend the most part of Saturday at Beamish Open Air Museum, which is not the easiest place to get to via public transport. We had lovely weather for our visit, which would take the whole day as I had to document as much as I possibly could for my journal (Beamish is #119 in my index).
 

 

Returning to my student house in Heaton, we changed and hit the Toon for a few drinks. I had not forgotten that The Late Shows were going on. At that time, I was in the placement module stage of my course, with my placement being within the Renaissance North East Hub Learning team, or “The Hub” for short. My colleagues within the Hub were all gearing up for the events which would be happening within the flagship Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) venues within Newcastle, principally the Great North Museum: Hancock (index #102) and their base of operations, Discovery Museum (#98). I wasn’t required to assist on the night, but I said I’d try and stop by, not realising the scope of what they were involved in.

So Dan and I went out, had some food, had some beers and generally caught up with one another. I talked about my second coming as a student and what Newcastle was like to live in. Dan talked about his life as a policeman, which I find endlessly fascinating. A few lagers later, I suggested we head across to Discovery Museum, to see if any of my colleagues at the Hub where there. And they were...along with half of city’s populace! Now, Discovery is a large museum, and the Great Hall on the fourth floor, where the events were being held, is a massive room which can hold a number of visitors, but I was surprised to see quite how many people were milling about. I had previously visited Discovery a handful of times: once for writing up in my journal, the other times in relation to my MA course. But I had no idea that a single event like The Late Shows could attract so many people.

The two of us had walked the entirety of Beamish earlier in the day and were now slightly inebriated. Nevertheless, I showed Dan around as much of Discovery Museum as I thought he would enjoy. Again, it is a large museum, so there was plenty to see: not least The Newcastle Story (a gallery in which visitors walk through the various eras of the city’s history), the Tyneside Challenge gallery which focuses upon local innovations, or the hands-on interactive minefield that is The Science Maze. But it was The Soldier’s Life – Discovery’s military history gallery – which caught Dan’s imagination the most. And I’m not sure it was for the content so much as it was for the special features...

 

Aside from a merry copper riding a rocking horse within a museum at night, the highlight of the evening was what was actually within the Great Hall – the advertised event that was drawing people into Discovery Museum: Giant Games! That is to say, traditional games that have been recreated to a much larger scale, from Connect 4 and Chess boards to a large Scalextric race track and a large button-bashing reaction test. All in all, it was a terrifically fun night and the memory has stayed with Dan to this day. Well, the rocking horse has at least....

Fast forward a year, I wanted to be more involved in The Late Shows. At the time, I was a freelance Heritage and ICT Facilitator on the side, whilst living off of an admin job at a law firm. It did not look like I would be staying in Newcastle for the long term, so at the time, I wanted to contribute whilst I still had the opportunity. After all, I had only ended up going to a single venue the year before.

An opportunity presented itself through my contacts. TWAM were overseeing a volunteering scheme to get young people involved in documenting The Late Shows for all those volunteers that were 18-25. The Late Shows 2011 were happening the month before I turned 26, so, eligible as I was, I signed up. The plan was to go around as many venues as possible, taking pictures and recording footage (audio and video) to get as complete a picture of the events as possible. The technical side was being directly overseen by Rob McIver, whom I had worked with closely during my time at The Hub, so he knew what I could do. However, I only committed myself to this project for one of the two nights, as I wanted the chance to volunteer at a single venue for a full night.

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to experience The Late Shows, they run over the course of the Friday and Saturday night of the allotted weekend. The cultural venues of Newcastle and Gateshead collectively open their doors on the Saturday evening, but the Ouseburn district of the city – which sits between Shieldfield, Manors and Byker – opens up its doors on Friday evening as well. Nestled beneath tall bridges for road, rail and Metro transport links, the Ouseburn boasts an urban farm, a stables, some fantastic pubs, the Cluny live music venue, artist studios and Seven Stories (#144) the National Children’s Centre for Literature, whilst further down the valley on the mouth of the Tyne is The Toffee Factory artistic complex, The Cycle Hub centre – a one stop haven for the cycling enthusiast – and some more pubs.

So for 2011, I committed myself to help capture the mood of the Ouseburn on the Friday night, whilst I would be one of the two volunteers stationed at Newcastle’s Castle Keep (#104) on the Saturday night. Not only would it be another string to my museum-based volunteering bow, but I’d also receive a free, and very fetching, Late Shows-branded hoody:

 ...the large size, clearly. So after work, I headed from the Haymarket down to Seven Stories, where I met up with Rob and my fellow members of the “Documenting Team”. I had been to Seven Stories once before with the Hub, but had yet to add it to my journals – that would happen a month later when my parents came up to visit. Literally seven floors tall, it’s an unsung gem of a place which champions the best of children’s literature through engaging displays, with plenty to occupy young visitors. I make a point to visit every year during The Late Shows, although that’s partially because it’s free to enter during those evenings and I’m a cheapskate! Be that as it may, it’s another reason for parents to take advantage of the event and check out a venue they might otherwise not visit.

After starting our documenting at Seven Stories, we moved on to other parts of the Ouseburn. We were not the only group milling around, as The Late Shows is not solely restricted to venues and buildings. The troupe of players known as the Time Bandits were on hand to give open-air performances of their Jack the Ripper show, with the occasional scream distracting the bemused denizens of The Cluny, who were sitting outside and watching on whilst cradling their plastic pint glasses. After getting some video footage from the actors – in character, naturally – we moved up the Stepney Bank road, which leads up to the west side of the valley. The route takes you past Northern Print, a perennially popular Late Shows destination by virtue of the fact that it gets VERY busy! But then, who doesn’t enjoy the spirit of Caxton?

But my personal highlight of that night was the contribution of the artistic collective Roots and Wings. Their contribution was a treasure hunt around the Ouseburn, which started at the “Enchanted” door of their building on Stepney Bank. We spotted the queue leading to the door before we saw the door itself. A set of instructions were posted nearby, imploring visitors to knock on the door and state the password: “Roots & Wings”. We set up our video camera and watched as a family group walked up to the door, behind which some ethereal music was playing, and knocked. An amplified, hoarse-sounding voice boomed out from the other side of the door, asking for the password. The children shouted back “ROOTS AND WINGS!” From there, the hoarse voice gave way to the loud chords of ‘O Fortuna’ as dry ice flushed through the letterbox, along with a special envelope for the children. As it appeared the voice boomed out its commandments “TAKE THE ENVELOPE AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!!” I’ve managed to unearth one of the videos we compiled, which illustrates the visuals, if not the booming voice, about 54 seconds into the clip. Heck, even when taking a 10 minute break to make up further envelopes (such was the demand), the booming voice decided to tell cheese-related jokes over the ethereal music to keep the queue entertained. Such as:

WHAT KIND OF CHEESE DO YOU USE TO HIDE A SMALL HORSE? MASCARPONE!

WHAT KIND OF CHEESE DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU? NACHO CHEESE!

WHAT KIND OF CHEESE DO YOU USE TO COAX A BEAR OUT OF A TREE? CAMMEMBERT (COME OUT OF THAT TREE!)

Maybe they don’t work as well written down, but I re-enacted them to my sister a few months later whilst in a car and she nearly swerved off of the road with mirth!!

After interviewing those who had received envelopes to get an insight into the nature of the clues, we headed back down the hill, stopping by the 36 Lime Street Studios before calling it a night. For my compadres, they would be doing the same thing all over again the following night, whereas I would be abandoning them to spend my Saturday evening in a bloody great castle!

Again, I think to describe The Castle Keep is best left for another day, so instead I will talk about the experience of volunteering there. Worthy as it was, I could not help but think, as I stood alongside my fellow volunteer, whose name I’ve sadly forgotten, that I had made a mistake. In the brief downtime I had that night, due to the slow queuing on the stairs guaranteeing that it was largely chock-a-block throughout the night, I was the one stringing the trademark Late Shows glowsticks. Yes, the beloved glowsticks! Join The Late Shows bandwagon too late, and you run the risk of not getting one at all, whilst certain sly beggars can go around the place hoarding a substantial amount! But they do lose a certain amount of lustre when a) they haven’t been cracked into translucent life, and b) you’re handing them out to other people.

And when you’re stood in the same place for hours on end, it’s almost a given that some of the people filing in will be people you know or recognise. I shared a few words with my university friends as they greeted me, asking them where they had been and what they had seen. Yes, I had wanted to volunteer, but now that I was volunteering, I was green with envy. I felt like I was missing out. I *was* missing out, however noble it is to volunteer (and it is noble). And after shutting the large wooden doors to the punters at 11pm, I waited for my complimentary taxi ride home, feeling weary and fairly down for denying myself a night of new sights and discoveries. Even though the Time Bandits had shown up at the Keep halfway through the night to perform for the visitors, I didn’t feel like I had experienced much from within those thick medieval walls.

A month or so later, an event was held by TWAM to thank the volunteers for their efforts over The Late Shows. It was being held at Tyneside Cinema, the Newcastle’s premier independent cinema, because some of the video footage that we had shot and edited together would be projected on to the big screen, whilst there would also be a free buffet, goody bags – the reason why I’m the proud owner of a TWAM-branded mug – and also a free screening of ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’. I give it 3 stars out of 5: I found the central character to be largely unsympathetic, which hampered the film’s narrative flow. Still, funny in places and Principal Rooney was fun.

Come 2012, in which I now had a full time job, and an MA to pay off, I put away notions of using The Late Shows to impress old friends or to make a contribution. That year, I wanted to see the vast scope of The Late Shows as a regular punter, taking in what was on display as someone whose direct connection to the museum world was steadily loosening. 2011 had taught me the structure of how to approach The Late Shows: namely, devote your Friday night to the Ouseburn, then prioritise what you want to do in Newcastle/Gateshead on the Saturday. And it was literally what I wanted to do as well – I wasn’t taking anyone with me. This was my own selfish treat to finally see what my adopted city had to teach me.

In truth, I don’t have much in the way of the anecdotes for this year. I didn’t take any pictures on either night, I tweeted once at the end of each night to say how much I had enjoyed the event, and travelling alone has the distinct disadvantage of lesser chances of memorable incidents. Which isn’t a bad thing when I’m doing my museum tour, but the bonhomie of visiting such places at night whilst weaving through people having a traditional night out, almost lends itself to visiting in pairs/groups.

My plan was that I started at GNM: Hancock and worked my way down towards the Tyne, looking to cross over to Gateshead. I didn’t get nearly that far – I called it a night after re-visiting the Castle Keep to mentally compare the visitor numbers with those of the previous year. But en route, I managed to visit places that I had never seen before. The particular highlights were two institutions that happen to live next door to one another: The Literary & Philosophical Society and The Mining Institute. The former with its magnificent library, and the latter’s fantastic hall and lecture theatre; both sites were real eye-openers, particularly given the countless times I had walked past their buildings without any idea of what they held. That is what The Late Shows can do – change your perception of the city you live in. For a community which is seeing the remnants of its industrial past being dismantled and packed away for the 21^st century, it is important that citizens and tourists alike are exposed to such places to gain a proper insight into Newcastle’s past.

Last year, I followed the ground rules of what I had established in 2012, but decided to change things up subtly in two ways. The first was to set less targets of what to go and see. The second was to tweet about it. Tweet incessantly, and earn that Twitter handle you bestowed upon yourself. So Friday evening came along, and I started at the venue nearest my own house – The Biscuit Tin Studios. Not only was it a building I’d never been to before, but certain artists were giving out complimentary plastic cups of wine! I moved through Shieldfield, via Holy Biscuit: the gallery within a contemporary church building. I then went to the larger sister site of The Biscuit Factory, with more art on display, more artist studios and more wine! After running into my friend Caroline, who had a hand in the running of the Late Shows, I continued on my merrier-than-anticipated way, moving down the Stepney Bank for another busy Northern Print visit and into the central area of the Ouseburn.

I sidled into Ouseburn Farm to check out the sights and smells, whilst an exhibition based upon the nest patterns of birds was on display inside. I gave it a mention on Twitter and the artist subsequently followed me  – the tweeting strategy was working! The route was already becoming familiar to me after 3 years. From the farm, we go past the Cluny. To Seven Stories, to see what might capture the imagination this time around: I tweeted about the fact that I had spent time in front of some ‘Where’s Wally?’ illustrations. Double back to 36 Lime Street for the annual cardiovascular workout of climbing its many floors. Then head out towards The Toffee Factory, stopping by a mobile exhibition space run by the Ouse Street Arts Club, mixing a bar with computer games and table tennis! Finally, upon reaching The Toffee Factory, I experience “The Big M”; an inflated tent with three large screens, showcasing looping imagery to music. All in all, a good evening’s jaunt in culture.

If my tweeting rule proved successful on the Friday, then my free-form jazz approach to where I wandered on the Saturday worked a treat. Starting at the Great North Museum: Hancock, I bounced from there to its sister site (GNM: Hatton) to the Newcastle Central Library, to the Laing Art Gallery across the road. If I thought the beach party vibe of the Central Library was a little offbeat, then the Laing belting out some loud dance tracks was a complete surprise! From there I found myself in the Church of St John listening to cello music in the haze of incense, before walking up the road to Newcastle Arts Centre, which was hosting live African music. Further west I headed, to the Globe Gallery, where I was invited to hang a personalised tube from the ceiling, and to its larger neighbour of the Discovery Museum, where the theme was similar insofar that messages relating to individual identity were being collated and would be hung by a massive crane at the end of the night. I stayed for that and then called it a night.

  

So there we have it. Four years experiencing The Late Shows, from starting off with a brief taster for the event, to a budding volunteer, then an interested explorer, and, finally, a ramshackle semi-veteran. This is the basis upon which I get excited for that one weekend in May, for as long as I live in or around Tyneside. This is the event which reminds me how much the North East positively gushes with culture. And through these experiences, I was chomping at the bit for the 2014 Late Shows to arrive. And arrive they did.

But that’s next week’s lengthy entry!

Richard III: The Case For Leicester

2012 is likely to be one of the more memorable years of the early 21^st century. It was an American election year, the Higgs boson particle was confirmed to exist, and an Austrian sky-diver leapt to Earth from space. Closer to home were the Olympic Games in London as well as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, which enabled me to stand on the banks of the Thames and watch my father and his crew row past the Royal Family in the pouring rain. But elsewhere in the country, another British monarch was making headlines as a team of academics and archaeologists successfully located the remains of Richard III, some 527 years after his death at the Battle of Bosworth. Due to the nature of the end of his reign, and the low key nature of his burial, the discovery of a lost king’s remains is almost certainly a once in a lifetime event. And this event happened in Leicester.

I was born and raised in Leicester, so I can imagine just how excited sections of the local community were at the very public investigation into the possible location of Greyfriars church, which was demolished during the English Reformation. Of course, present day Leicester is most famous for its large multicultural community, its mighty rugby union side and its association with crisps, as championed by one of our most famous sons. But the Wars of the Roses continue to loom large over Leicestershire, as the location of the definitive 1485 battle outside of Market Bosworth and the final resting place of one of the most interesting and notorious of England’s kings.

As I write this, no final decision has been made on how to lay Richard’s remains to rest – as I’ll get to in a moment – but previously, his unofficial grave was marked with a slab in Leicester Cathedral. I know this as an alumnus of Leicester Grammar School, which, prior to its move to a greenfield site in 2008, would hold assemblies in the cathedral and owned the nearby St Martin’s building. The yard of said building was dug up during the summer archaeological excavations and has subsequently been purchased by the city council for the purposes of a forthcoming museum dedicated to Richard III. I’m not quite sure what pleases me more: seeing my old school being turned into a museum, or the thought of my 10 year old self being yards away from playing football over the grave of a king! As it happened, the grave was being parked upon instead on the other side of the wall.

Though my parents now live in Derby, I made a point of stopping by Leicester when I was visiting them a couple of weeks ago. The St Martin’s building will not be opening its doors any time soon, but tourists will be able to find an exhibition relating to both the life and times of Richard III and the archaeological process throughout 2012. Its location is the city’s medieval Guildhall, situated directly opposite the cathedral and connected to the main building of the former grammar school, which is now utilised by the cathedral’s staff as an office/conference centre complex. The exhibition, entitled ‘Richard III: Leicester’s Search for a King’, is housed within the modern side building which sits alongside the original Guildhall structure.

 

Both halves of the site are available to the public free of charge, although donations boxes with suggested amounts for visitors to consider are prominently placed by the entrance. It was telling that I had to queue to get around the exhibition whilst very few of them continued on into the Guildhall proper.  But this shouldn’t be taken as a slight on the latter; the exhibition is just that damn popular. I asked the museum assistant operating the clicker about how many visitors had been in between the exhibition opening its doors at 11am and the time of my enquiry, which was 12:45pm. She replied that she’d clicked through 196 visitors, and apparently this constituted a relatively slow day in terms of footfall! I felt ready to regale her with tales of visitor numbers from when I used to volunteer in local museums, but I thought better of it when remembering that there was a queue behind me and that I shouldn’t be bothering total strangers with anecdotes whilst they’re trying to work.

I can see why the exhibition is so popular: visitors come to find out the facts of last year’s excavation, and are treated to dual narratives, with the wall-lined displays focusing upon Richard’s life and times whilst the interactive central display focuses upon the archaeological process. It isn’t a large exhibition but it says all that it needs to say based upon the results of the dig. In short, it is one of the most enticing reasons to visit Leicester that the outside world has been offered.

Now all this may sound wonderful, particularly as provincial cities don’t often have major finds land in their lap in such a way. However, with an uncanny similarity to the Wars of the Roses, the House of York have thrown conflict into the mix by staking their own claim to the king’s remains. Richard was, of course, the Duke of York following the death of his father Richard, who was the primary antagonist to the Lancastrian King Henry VI. The younger Richard was known for his loyal Northern power base and even despite his turbulent two year reign and his subsequent treatment at the quills of writers during the Tudor era, Richard continues to receive support from Yorkshire to this day. Online petitions to have the Last Plantagenet’s remains repatriated to York have been doing the rounds, whilst local politicians have been lobbying for Richard to be returned to God’s own county and a group calling themselves “The Plantagenet Alliance” have instructed solicitors to seek a judicial review into the Ministry of Justice allowing the University of Leicester to have the final say on Richard’s resting place.

It’s hard to overlook the fact that the deceased king is so popular in York that the city already has its own Richard III museum, housed within the Monk Bar gatehouse of the city walls. That, in its own right, is pretty darn awesome! The museum not only gives its visitors a full overview of Richard’s life but also uses the mystery of the Princes in the Tower as a means of looking at historical bias and the importance of source work, via a hypothetical trial of the museum’s namesake. This concept has been taken further by the museum’s curator Michael S Bennett, who has physically portrayed the king in front of visiting audiences prior to his retirement from performing. It is fair to say that the claim to Richard by the city, county and house of York is one with distinct foundation. But is a strong local desire for his remains a good enough reason for the city of Leicester to comply with such a wish? Is this dispute really comparable to Greece’s claim to the Parthenon marbles?

Though I am a sentimental Leicestrian, as well as an alumnus of Lancaster University, York does hold a place in my heart. From my childhood memories of daffodils growing along the city walls to my MA thesis being based upon four prominent visitor attractions within York, there are few cities that I have kept coming back to for the purpose of filling my museum journals. The Richard III Museum aside, there are hidden gems in Barley Hall and the Merchant Adventurer’s Hall. I have seen the city’s skyline atop Clifford’s Tower; I have been guided around its reconstructed Viking heyday at Jorvik, and brushed around rubber soil at its Dig sister site. York Castle Museum boasts studios, dungeons and the fantastic Kirkgate street. Not forgetting the National Railway Museum or the Yorkshire Museum, I could also name-check places that I have yet to visit and write up, from the York Minster cathedral to the York Dungeon and the Quilt Museum, and I haven’t even mentioned the art galleries. York is quite simply a tourism powerhouse, dripping with history from every pore. You would be hard-pressed to walk 200 metres within the city limits without stumbling across a cultural venue.

Leicester, bless it, isn’t quite in the same league. This is not to say there’s nothing there for museum fans to take in though. Aside from the Guildhall, Leicester is home to the New Walk Museum, the Roman heritage site Jewry Wall and the Newarke Houses Museum. Outside the city limits is the National Space Centre – as Leicester is obviously the home of space travel – with Abbey Pumping Station right next door and Belgrave Hall a relative stone’s throw away. I also found out recently that the city has a gas museum, and that it is only a few neighbourhoods away from where I grew up. There are other cultural venues within the city, but wearing my Museum Walker hat, Leicester simply doesn’t have the same tourism clout that York does.

And in the grand scheme of things, that’s fine. Few British cities do, outside of London, Edinburgh and maybe Manchester. But what managed to get my gander up was when the leader of Scarborough Borough Council stated that “the people of Leicester misplaced him for 500 years. Would we really entrust his remains to them again? I think not”. I shouldn’t get het up about a deeply partisan shot from a politician taking a time-out from serving the needs of his constituents – I somehow doubt Richard III is a major topic of conversation in Scarborough, although I accept that may be projection on my part – but it is a comment made without bothering to worry about the concepts of feasibility or historical realism.

Following the ruination of Greyfriars church during the Reformation, I wonder who would dare to reveal publically their appetite to try and locate a monarch non grata under the Tudor dynasty, which ended in 1603, 118 years after Richard’s death. It arguably wasn’t an urgent priority during the Stuart era either, which ended 229 years later in 1714, by which point the city of Leicester was growing. I don’t want to be overly defensive, but if potshots must be fired at Leicester, at least denigrate the aspects that deserve scorn. Personally, I’d nominate the price of parking or the council’s decision to replace the trees in the city centre with multi-coloured lighting poles. With that being said, I’d prefer the level of discourse to be polite and civilised when thrashing out some kind of agreement because politics, on all levels, is at its ugliest when co-operation is thwarted out of pettiness or partisanship.

I don’t know where Richard III will ultimately be laid to rest, be it Leicester, York, or, as I discovered during my research, Barnard Castle in County Durham, as another politician enters into the debate with a claim for his interment. It is a political matter at the end of the day, and requires more research than I am prepared to undergo, as the minutiae of repatriation is multi-faceted, delicate and very complicated. What I can say is that ‘Richard III: Leicester’s Search for a King’ is well worth seeking out as an exploration of how it came to be that a group of academics managed to unearth a lost monarch. It is free to visit, backs on to a well-preserved medieval building and gives you a reason to visit Leicester, if, like me, you enjoy seeking out places in Britain that you have never been to before. Considering he was once one of the most reviled kings in English history, Richard III has never been as popular as he is today!

Jorvik Viking Centre

Visit Date: 15 March 2008

Admission Price: At time of visit, the charges were as follow:
Adult - £8.50
Ages 5-15 - £4.00
Concessions - £7.00

Please check to see whether these charges have since been revised.

Ownership: York Archaeological Trust

Tel. Number: 01904 543400

Website: http://www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/

Walkthrough: The entrance times into Jorvik are staggered, making Viking-attired interpreters necessary for two reasons. They can engage with visitors queuing up to get into the building, and they are also on hand to guide a set number of people through the site at a time. This is measured by the number of people that step into ‘The Time Machine’, a theatrical presentation in which the interpreter demonstrates that the seated area is travelling back in time. After watching a video in which a male and female actor are shown wearing the fashions of each regressing time period, the theatre area floor shakes in time with an “error” that forces the interpreter to lead the group out of the area and through stylised cave walls towards ‘Jorvik’ itself. The ride consists of a cab suspended from an overhead conveyor which seats six visitors at a time and houses speakers on either side of the head rest, offering an audio tour in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and a second English guide aimed at children. The 10 minute ride takes the car through a reconstruction of Viking-era York, twisting towards particular areas and characters, with a mixture of stationary mannequins and animatronics dressed up as residents of the town. In addition to the sights of the town, visitors also get to experience various smells through odour droplet dispensers and fans, ranging from the smells of fish and roasted meat to that of the Viking man within the latrine! The narrative concludes upon the archaeological history which serves as the basis of the Jorvik reconstruction, with a Pepper’s Ghost lighting effect used to transition the ride back into the present day.

The grouping system is abandoned as visitors can wander around the remainder of the site at their leisure. The initial area is a relatively narrow connecting gallery with the left side wall displaying illustrative information about Viking history and culture, in lieu of panels. The opposite wall has more nooks and crannies, allowing for touchscreens testing the Viking mentality of visitors, live interpreter spaces for weaving or coin striking and an interactive which plays Nordic word pronunciations over speakers for the equivalent English word beside command buttons. The adjacent gallery houses the ‘Viking Ghosts’ exhibition. This consists of four main glassed off areas containing the artefacts which would either be crafted or owned by one of the four characters that are represented by transparent mannequins (again utilising the Pepper’s Ghost technique) and portrayed by actors, whose video accounts are projected into their display areas in sequence. There are additional touchscreens dotted around the gallery and additional cases near the exit, showcasing individual artefacts. The final area is ‘Unearthed’, wrapping up the end of Viking rule as well as promoting the archaeology involved in researching that era. The centre of the room features an encased skeleton, with panels detailing what information can be gained from various marks and fractures. There are further panels around the walls about the archaeological process as well as objects to handle and some final interactives. From here, the stairs lead up to the gift shop whilst advertising other York Archaeological Trust sites on the way up.

Highlights:

- The Time Machine.
- Jorvik.
- Viking Ghosts.

Lowlights:

- Queueing at peak times.

Access: Jorvik is located within the Coppergate Shopping Centre, near the Castle Area of York, which has a large pay and display car park adjacent to York Castle Museum and Clifford’s Tower. There are bus stops nearby and the site is a 15 minute walk from the railway station. There is a lift down to the attraction, although the site is only allowed to house one wheelchair user at a time due to health and safety regulations, which necessitates booking a timeslot in advance.

Overall Impression: I can’t help but love Jorvik! It isn’t be cheap, but you leave the site with an indelible impression of what York was like under Viking rule. The car ride may not be to everyone’s taste, but it is balanced out by the latter stages of the site due to the archaeological focus of the displays. The queuing to get into the site is annoying, but indicative of its popularity, and once you visit, your ticket is valid for 12 months and allows you to bypass the line to get in. All in all, a great attraction.


Update: 18th August 2010 – The entrance to Jorvik has since been refurbished, allowing a more expansive funnel area onto the Viking car ride itself, whilst promoting its archaeological roots at the same time. The Time Machine has been replaced by ‘Discover Coppergate’, a reconstruction of the archaeological dig pit of the site, beneath a well-lit transparent floor. The rest of the space is only selectively lit, with backlit panels on the site’s history as well as projections onto the wall and displays of 1000 year old timbers. The ride through Jorvik has been upgraded as well, with a number of the Viking animatronic characters upgraded to allow their mouths to move in synchronisation with the Norse speech playing within the in-car audio tour. Beyond these refurbishments, the rest of the site remains pretty much the same.

York Castle Museum

Visit Date: 15 March 2008

Admission Price: At time of visit, the charges were as follow:
Adult - £6.50
Ages 5-16 - £4.00
Concessions - £5.50

Please check to see whether these charges have since been revised.

Ownership: City of York Council (Ownership), York Museums Trust (Management)

Tel. Number: 01904 687687

Website: http://www.yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk/Page/Index.aspx

Walkthrough: The entrance area connects the two buildings that make up the museum, with the set route first taking visitors through the North Building on the left. The initial stairway leads up to the ‘Period Rooms’ exhibition, which showcases the interiors of a middle class Victorian parlour, an 1850s Moorland cottage, a Jacobean dining room and a Georgian drawing room. Each room is fully furnished with information panels on the outside whilst certain rooms also play in certain sound effects, such as wind blowing outside the Moorland cottage and tabor music playing into the Jacobean room. Between the rooms are standing cabinets acting as display cases for statuettes and decorative artefacts, as well as there being a window which overlooks Kirkgate Street, which visitors come to later on through the route. Past the rooms, there is a final display case beneath a staircase containing a moorland cross before the route continues on up the stairs.

The next exhibition, ‘Spotless’, looks at cleaning and domestic hygiene throughout the ages. Utilising a number of hands-on activities, there are mystery boxes for visitors to feel inside, a vacuum interactive which sucks up various forms of waste and a button-operated quiz by the exhibition exit to recap the themes of the gallery. The museum’s collections are shown through thematic groupings of different household fittings and appliances – such as vacuum cleaners, baths, toilets, toiletries and washboards – and with a further period room as a 1950s living room, with looping sound effects coming from around the radio. The panels are designed to be appealing to children, with some containing hinged flaps to reveal further information, as are the old fashioned water pump and the Ash Midden privy, which displays fake faeces and rat models at the base beneath the transparent cover. The steps at the exit point lead down to the ‘From Cradle to Grave’ gallery, which focused upon the rites of passage during the Victorian era. Dominated by the centrepiece of a Victorian funeral procession, with mannequins depicting a bereaved father and daughter following on behind the carriage, the room has large display cases lining the walls for artefacts and clothing relating to birth, marriage and death. The atmosphere is helped by sound effects of church bells and nursery rhymes being played in. The adjacent gallery features ‘Chinese Reflections’ which looks at Chinese culture and how immigrants from China have contributed to the local community within York. On display are cases containing artefacts such as ceramics and fans, whilst the walls are used to show projected films on the subject, a timeline of Chinese immigration and culture within York, and information panels in both the English and Mandarin languages.

Due to construction work going on to the main route, an alternative route takes visitors down another set of stairs which leads into ‘Kirkgate’, the museum’s famed Victorian street recreation. Before this however, the connecting corridor holds ‘Kirkgate Reflections’, in which residents of York from different professions have a full photograph of themselves on the wall with their own accounts of their life in York written alongside. Kirkgate itself is predominantly L-shaped with a number of shop fronts displaying different areas of the Kirk collection. Certain buildings can be entered into, such as the candlemakers and the adjacent firehouse(!) whilst other shops are sometimes manned by volunteers in Victorian costume. Adding to the atmosphere are the lighting and sound effects which run on a 30 minute loop, with half of the time being swathed in daylight with pre-recorded crowd bustle, and the other half darkening to a night-time scenario which includes a thunderstorm with lightning effects. Moving past the horse and cart in the centre of the street before the Period Rooms window, there are further shop fronts to look into as the route moves back to the entrance building, past vintage coin-operated curiosity machines.

The route proceeds to the top floor of the South Building, via a staircase which passes the site’s cafe. The top floor begins with the ‘Military History gallery’ which concentrates on York’s role during the English Civil War, particularly the Battle of Marston Moor. Whilst the information panels are largely taken up by the aforementioned battle, the gallery displays a great deal of 17th century armour as well as an interactive where visitors use pulleys to discover how heavy that armour is compared to more modern army protection. This transitions into more recent conflict, specifically looking at York’s experience with the Second World War. This ranges from the use of standee images and an interview with a local veteran to the larger display case room, which is full of military uniforms, equipment, and other supplies. The route then moves downstairs.

The middle level is the home of the ‘Children’s gallery’, which was closed at the time of my visit, and the ‘Costume gallery’. This begins with a Regency era room reconstruction, with the fine costumes on display benefitting from the dim lighting being used and a rare mannequin posed at a writing desk by the bed. After further displays of vintage clothing, shoes and jewellery, the route leads round to the stairs again and down to the ground floor. ‘The Cells’ has its subject matter split into two, depending on which side of the staircase the visitors are. To the left, each cell contains the products of local craftsmen and their industries, such as printing, joinery and brush-making. On the other side of the stairs, the original functions of the cells are explored, with panels interpreting the small “condemned cell” as well as a larger cell with a grill of a bed on display.

Highlights:

- Wide-ranging collections.
- Kirkgate.

Lowlights:

- Limited facilities.

Access: The museum is located within two of York’s most prominent historical buildings and opposite Clifford’s Tower, which has a large pay and display car park beside it. There are also bus stops nearby and it is very close to the commercial centre of the city, making it easy to reach for pedestrians. Due to the nature of the interiors, there are no stair lifts or regular lifts for wheelchair users to access the upper floors – the only accessible areas are the prison cells, through an alternate entrance, and Kirkgate street via a ramped walkway. For this reason, wheelchair users and their carers are allowed in free of charge.

Overall Impression: Even if you don’t use the annual ticket for repeat visits over the subsequent year, the admissions price is still a fair deal for the amount there is to see within York Castle Museum. Sadly, the preserved nature of the building means that it isn’t fully accessible and the route around the site can be confusing, even though this was partially due to refurbishment work. That being said, Kirkgate alone could be considered an attraction in its own right, despite the fact that there are many other more traditional displays that are very impressive and reflects the sheer size of the museum’s collection.


Update: 29th October 2011 – Following a fair bit of re-design, both buildings have seen significant changes. The North Building has a longer route down to Kirkgate after the Chinese Reflections gallery. Moving up the stairs, there is the first of two studios where members of staff put on demonstrations for visitors and allow them to handle certain objects. Keeping on the domestic theme, the first of these is the ‘Kitchen Studio’ in which a modern kitchen installation is surrounded by craft tables where visitors can drop in for family activities. This is followed by a number of older kitchen environments from the 1940s and 1980s, in addition to hearths from Yorkshire farmhouses and an old-fashioned ice cabinet and a 1930s refrigerator opposite the stairs. The next level down starts with the Dales Kitchen – a room that visitors cross through with some furniture along the walls and objects displayed in an adjacent, locked-off room – before reaching the ‘Barn gallery’. This area has old agricultural tools, equipment and miscellaneous artefacts, such as the mounted head of “Pat the Giant”, displayed on either side of the central walkway. The majority of artefacts have numbered labels with associated keys on standing panel and there’s also a projected film about growing up on a Yorkshire farm. Beyond the Barn gallery are more stairs which lead down to the top end of the Kirkgate street.

The South Building still starts the route off on the top floor, but the start point has become a display relating to ‘Merchant Adventurers’, which displays naval weaponry around information panels. Following on from this, there is a corner display containing dummies dressed in Elizabethan armour before leading into the ‘Military Studio’, where visitors are invited to handle weapons and armour from the past. This then leads into the unchanged top floor displays. The floor below has been fully redone however, with the Children’s galley becoming ‘Toy Stories’, in which toys from the early 20th to 21st centuries are grouped together in cases that run at intervals at either side along the length of the main corridor, with adjacent panels with number keys labelling each item. There is still a presence for costumes, with Hollywood-esque dresses and beachwear in their own displays with sound effects playing in, although what used to be the ‘Costume Studio’ has been transformed into the staff-supervised ‘Castle Playroom’ where all the toys and activities are based around medieval fortresses. The ground floor has also been radically overhauled as the route at the bottom of the stairs begins outside in the courtyard, where a certain number of playground activities are available. The door that leads back into the building takes visitors straight into ‘The Sixties’, a stylised street with overhanging coloured perspex shapes that represent symbols of the 1960s. Unlike Kirkgate, the street is filled with displays, from a case containing objects from the decade to a moped on a stand, a shuttle children can climb into, a standing outline of The Beatles from the cover of the album ‘Help!’ and a jukebox, in addition to a screen playing television footage from the time. There are shop fronts along one side, which house information panels and displays whilst the opposite wall features thematic information on illustrated wall panels.

This then leads into ‘York Castle Prison’, in which the prison cells have been cleared of the tradesmen’s products and left bare whilst eight actors in total perform monologues in character as past prisoners (and staff), which are then projected onto the bare walls. Following the claustrophobic cell, which utilises gasping sound effects and intermittent UV lighting to illuminate facts on prisoner suffocation, the route moves past the stairs and into the second set of cells. Here, the cell environments are used to look at the prison’s history more broadly through a room dedicated to petitions – with sample petitions on wooden boards hanging from the walls – another room projecting a computer animation of the site’s history progressing through the ages onto a screen on the floor. The “condemned cell” now looks at prison poetry, with readings being played through a speaker, whilst the adjacent cell charts the historical fate of the characters seen in the initial part of the prison area. The route then rejoins the central building.

6 month update!

Hi there

Yes, it's been a long while again, but I have been busy as those of you following my Twitter will have noticed! At time of writing, I'm one visit away from site #150 whilst I am currently writing up entries 148 & 149 from my trip to York this past weekend.

As you can guess, that means I have 140+ museums, heritage sites and visitor attractions to get down on this blog. But I am finally in a position to get the ball rolling on this again, in no part helped by the fact that I have scanned my first journal - The Green Book - and added it to my computer as a means of quicker reference. I also used my trip to York to dash around the museum that I have been stuck on for so long.

Watch this space to find out which museum that is. I promise it won't take another six months!

Apologies for the massive delays once again.

Ian

Hiatus apology/explanation!

Hello there!

The keen-eyed of you will have noticed that the typing up of my journals came to an abrupt halt after entry #5, nearly a year ago. I am afraid my MA very much threw a spanner in the works as I spent May-September last year working solidly on my dissertation, and ever since, I've been trying to finish writing up the backlog of my journals. This includes a trip to Chicago, where I visited two of the largest museums I've ever been to!

But now that I am writing up my most recent museum, I am ready to get this ball rolling once again! It's unlikely to be this week, but in readiness for its imminent return, I have set up a Twitter account to help publicise the blog as well as learning more about the museum sector. You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/MuseumWalkerIan

In the mean time, apologies for the virtual year of silence and with any luck, Museum Walker should start to grow somewhat rapidly from this point onwards!

See you soon!

Ian

Inspire Discovery Centre, Norwich

Visit Date: 21 February 2008

Admission Price: At time of visit, the charges were as follow:
Adult - £4.50
Concessions - £4.00
Saver - £13.00 (defined as 2 adults and 2 children)

Please check to see whether these charges have since been revised.

Ownership: The Science Projects Foundation (in 2008)

Tel. Number: 01603 612612

Website: http://www.inspirediscoverycentre.com/index.html

Walkthrough: Housed in a former church, Inspire’s demographic is immediately apparent as the floor is covered in blue rubber matting, with a variety of books and toys at the side of the entrance, along with the refreshments area on the ground floor and the upstairs area for school groups. The main space of the building houses hands-on science exhibits, with individual panels that explain the science behind each display in an accessible way. Going around the space, these exhibits included spring-activated siege catapults, clockwork mechanisms, mirror displays, a ball chute and an interactive table area that tests a visitor’s hearing, reaction speed and ability to count. There is also a covered area where the site’s light-related exhibits are displayed. A large part of the centre was taken up by a temporary exhibition on flying, entitled Jet Set Go. This boasted features where visitors can stamp passport booklets, move objects through a conveyor belt and work an air traffic control display. This has further interactive buttons as well as a communicative link to the cockpit of the plane structure, which is split into the front area and the back area with a large space in between. Whilst the front area looked at the technical aspects of flying a plane, the back part of the plane was more of a cushioned reading/activity area.

Highlights:

- Interesting location.
- Fun interactives.

Lowlights:

- Jet Set Go didn't interpret much of the airline-based activities.
- Some additional interactives could have been fitted in.

Access: Located north of the river (Wensum), the site isn’t immediately easy to get to on account of the one-way road system, although it isn’t very far from the city centre either. There aren’t bus stops nearby and the parking is on-street with pay & display spaces nearby. The exhibits are all on the ground floor, although there is wheelchair access for the education space on the first floor.

Overall Impression: Whilst the temporary exhibition took up more space than it probably warranted, the Inspire Discovery Centre is a welcoming venue that allows children to get to grips with science. The fact that it isn’t a large venue limits the extent of what the site can offer, but it’s a good regional science-based attraction.

Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery

Visit Date: 21 February 2008

Admission Price: At time of visit, the charges were as follow:
Adult - £5.80
Concessions - £4.95
Ages 4-16 - £4.25

There are additional charges for the separate tours of the castle’s battlements and the dungeons. Please check to see whether these charges have since been revised.

Ownership: Norwich City Council

Tel. Number: 01603 493 625

Website: http://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/default.asp?Document=200.21

Walkthrough: Starting within the Castle Keep of the building, there are displays on the three storeys open to the public. The main floor, in so much as it is level with the admissions desk, has a number of displays that have the thematic connection of being linked with Norwich. These include a carnival costume of the Snap Dragon, medieval metalwork, displays of armour from the Norman era through to the English Civil War and activity tables for children. The floor above is effectively a balcony area that runs around the walls of the keep, with information panels about the castle, tapestries and a dummy Norman. You have the option of either doubling back to make it down to the basement level, or take the direct spiral staircase instead! This floor is more geared towards younger visitors and is split into two areas. One area examines the castle’s construction and masonry, with displays on where the stone came from, a boat journey table to illustrate how the stones were transported, dummy masons and an archway to construct from foam blocks. The other area has a circular area in the middle for children to play with assorted toys and building blocks whilst the outside of the circle featured the grated off castle well, map-based games, a model of the castle keep and imprisoned dummies.

Moving into the main museum building, the central hub (the “Rotunda”) leads to the majority of the site’s art galleries opposite the entrance, which include collections of watercolours, porcelain and teapots. The history begins with the stylised Boudica gallery, which splits itself between the local Iceni tribe and the Roman Empire. Starting through a wicker hut entrance, the main area combines displays of the gallery’s many artefacts (which include pots, amulets and coins) with eye-catching displays. These include a dummy Celt making a religious offering with birdsong playing over him, a tree stump colouring table, a model of a traditional roundhouse and a chariot simulator where visitors stand on an uneven cab floor and watch video footage that suggests the vehicle is in motion. Further along is a video of an Iceni storyteller recounting the history of Boudica from a local perspective before a diorama of Romans sacking Celtic huts. Somewhat symbolically, the rest of the gallery becomes Roman-ized with tiles underfoot and a brighter light intensity. The information panels in this area focus on Roman Britain, whilst the hands on features consist of a mosaic puzzle and a dressing up area containing togas.

Directly above it is the Anglo-Saxon & Viking gallery, which looks at life in East Anglia after the collapse of the Roman Empire. This splits the gallery space into three areas (Dark Ages, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings) via banners, with display cases for each one. Artefacts held include pots, weapons, coins and jewellery. Throughout each area are activity tables for children, with hands on features such as illustrated slide puzzles, a game with counters, a dressing up box and crayons. More specifically, the Anglo-Saxon area features the contents of a burial site, with a women’s skeleton within, whilst the far end of the gallery has a model of Norwich before the Norman invasion with a modern map of the city etched into the glass above the model. The remaining historical gallery on this floor is the Egyptian gallery, which is accessible through glass doors on the Rotunda’s balcony. The gallery corridor is dimly lit, to good effect, with motion-triggered lighting that flashes up onto the uncovered face of a mummy on display. There are artefacts along the wall, including mummified animals, a very grand sarcophagus, jewellery, pots, amulets and hieroglyphs, as well as a lit screen for visitors to press x-ray panels against.

Around the rest of the Rotunda’s balcony has more art-based displays, with the space opposite the Egyptian gallery taken up a display of the Norwich Silver collection. The final gallery space on the middle floor is given over to modern art, with the remaining galleries being located on the ground floor. With the art galleries to the rear of the building, the final rooms contain the Natural History galleries. These house a number of rooms containing various exhibits of animal taxidermy, set out traditionally in display cases with labels. The degree of stylisation differs between the rooms, with the mammal gallery being fairly minimal in stylistic terms whilst birds and waterfowl are situated against a mock riverside environment, with buttons that play duck noises when pressed!

Highlights:

- The Iceni & Roman Galleries.
- The Mammal Gallery
- The Castle Keep

Lowlights:

- Despite the displays, the Mammal gallery sound effects didn't fully work.
- The museum building was showing its age in places.

Access: Easy to find, given that it is a castle over-looking the city centre, and straightforward to get to as a result, with a number of bus stops running along the main road beside it and 10 minutes away from the railway station. There’s a car park directly underneath the castle which is connected to the nearby shopping centre, although it does charge for its usage. Despite being on top of a hill, there is a lift provided to allow wheelchair users access to the site itself. Within the building, there are lifts that allow wheelchair users, who are allowed to bring in one companion for free, to access all parts of the site.

Overall Impression: Norwich Castle Museum covers a wide range of topics in both heritage and art, and manages to be fully accessible as well, which is usually a problem with castles. There is a slight problem with regards to the condition of the museum building itself. Although it isn’t a glaring problem in the majority of the galleries, the admission price is sufficient enough to expect a higher standard of maintenance – particularly for the renowned natural history galleries. It is certainly worth visiting, although it may be slightly expensive for what it offers overall.