Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[yateleyboatbuilder]

Had a day out at the Greenwich Maritime Museum today, looking forward to seeing some fine models of ships and boats of all ages and types, sad to say they have virtually all been moved for display and storage at Chatham dock yard, leaving only a few at Greenwich. those in storage at Chatham can only be seen by prior arrangement.

[ballastanksian]

Harumph.  Mind you,I expect that in future decades, elderly folks will reminisce the days of button pressing interactive displays  and grumble about these AI holographic displays.

There's nowt like a quality model to be inspired by.

[Colin Bishop]

The models were taken off display some years ago now. The same thing has happened at the Science Museum, Southampton Maritime Museum and a number of other museums. It is certainly a great shame as models recreate the originals in a way no other method can.


There is unfortunately little interest in maritime models by the public at large it would seem. I used to visit the wonderful display in the Science Museum and often found that I and perhaps a couple of other people were the only ones in that gallery even though the rest of the museum was heaving with visitors. Such little use of exhibition space simply could no longer be justified.


Colin

[captain bligh]

I went to the Greenwich maritime museum last and was very disappointed if honest but the Observatory on the other hand is very interesting and well worth a visit.

[FsASTSyd1]

Colin, quite right, I took somebody (Who actually departed this world more than 10 years ago) to see the wonderful models that I remembered from a previous visit, and I think even that long ago we only saw two of any note. So it seems to have long been the policy to remove the models, and I have not been back since.


Syd J

[roycv]

My last visit to the Science museum maybe 5 years ago found me very disappointed as well, I must have looked it as I was asked as I departed for my opinion of the museum by staff on the service desk, so I told them what I thought.

I think it maybe to do with how 'hands on' the population is.  Seeing and appreciating a model boat / aircraft etc as a model is viewed differently by a model builder.  The general population would rather see the boat doing something.

To look at it from a more neutral point of view, a trip to the I.W.M. a few years ago had some mock ups of trenches in WW 1, I walked through them in a general way but sat down for quite a while to watch film from the period and now some of that has been coloured it does have a bigger impact.

I remember going to the Deustche Museum in Munich 20 odd years ago and that was very good loads of models a lot of English descriptions, anyone know if that has changed?

Regards Roy

[tr7v8]

I quite agree unfortunately the way things are going.
Did the Cloth Hall in Ypres a few years ago, one entire floor is a full experience of WW1. The wife, mother & I came out without a dry eye. A fantastic & sobering experience.

[Plastic - RIP]

I've been to most of the big museums many times over the years and I'm finding they have all taken to the 'dumbing down' approach of lots of shiny colours and interactive computer nonsense but the 'meat' has been removed.

They all look like they have been done by 16-year olds on work experience.

Worst of all is the industrial museum on Bristol Docks - M-Shed.

Used to have loads of Bristol cars, buses, engines, trucks, aircraft, Brunel stuff and lots more - now it only has the name-plate for the Bristol Brabazon and a load of Wallace & Gromit memorabilia. That's it. Nothing else.

A total waste of time & money.

[roycv]

Hi, I forgot (quite easily done in this case) I was in the Bristol museum on the opening day with a mate who lives in Bristol.  We spent a whole 45 minutes there!  Then we looked at each other in disbelief.  What a pathetic excuse for a museum after what had gone before.
Nobody seems to know or care how anything works and do not wish to learn.

From a recent experience a young person was asked if they would like to come on a canal boat holiday for a week.  The only question asked was, is there Wifi?  Refused to go after learning that.
It's me getting old,
Roy

[raflaunches]

No Roy its not just yourself! I'm 32 (rapidly approaching 33!) and I'm disgusted with some of my generation who are not interested in proper exhibits. I see lads and lasses everywhere with their mobile phone stuck in their hand and dare not take their eyes off it just incase something happens. They look like lost lambs when we, the NCOs, tell them that they can't bring their phones to work or on the flight line. I'm annoyed at a lot of the museums for placing their exhibits into storage for interactive displays- I went to Duxford last year and got questioned by a museum tourist researcher why I had come to the museum. I pointed to the big white prototype of the TSR2 and said that! To which he replied- oh and what is that aircraft then!??!   If the people who are setting up these museums aren't interested in the exhibits then what hope is there?   

[Jerry C]

I arranged, via email, with the curator of the museum at Chatham to view a cup I won in HMS Worcester. When the school closed down all its artifacts  were donated to Chatham and kept in storage. My wife and I made the trip from North Wales to also view the new Destroyer memorial sculpture. When we arrived at the appointed time the curator was on holiday and his deputy didn't know anything about it.
Jerry.

[Baldrick]

I arranged, via email, with the curator of the museum at Chatham to view a cup I won in HMS Worcester. When the school closed down all it's artifacts  were donated to Chatham and kept in storage. My wife and I made the trip from North Wales to also view the new Destroyer memorial sculpture. When we arrived at the appointed time the curator was on holiday and his deputy didn't know anything about it.
Jerry.

   Arrange to have him publicly castigated; with a rusty hacksaw blade.
I remember visiting the the MM at Greenwich some years back, the exhibits were fantastic and I think it was due to this visit I have been enthralled in all maritime matters since . So sad that  things have deteriorated over the years

[Beagle1831]

The builder's model of HMS Queen Mary was on display the last time I visited which was fantastic- otherwise much less than there used to be!


I thought the Scott Polar Museum was excellent when I last went- only a small museum​ but an interesting display of models of the ships involved, plus other lots of other interesting bits on polar exploration, Scott's letters etc.

[Baldrick]

and as for the poor old Cutty Sark , someone should have been hung for that.

[Colin Bishop]

Yes, Cutty Sark is awful. Excuses have been made on the basis of cost pressures but the way the ship is displayed you cannot see it properly from ground level and the hull has all those supports through it.


Not very impressed with Medway Queen either, new hull, new upperworks - is there anything left of the original or is it just a replica?


And for all the huge sums of public money put into the 'restoration' I don't think it will ever carry passengers.


Colin

[Plastic - RIP]

An excellent museum is the Mosquito Museum at Salisbury Hall

http://www.dehavillandmuseum.co.uk/

It's a proper nerdy museum where you can clamber all over the exhibits and touch everything, sit in cockpits, turn the engines  and try out the passenger accomodation.
Very friendly and enthusiastic staff (mostly old DeHavilland boys).

I went to Hendon last week and it's being refurbished so is a half-closed mess right now. The only food available is the sandwich cafe near the Lancaster - the WW2 bit is closed and the grounds have been totally dug up (to be replaced with mounds that simulate fox holes - but are really anti-terrorism blast deflectors) so the pristine lawns are gone forever.

[Arrow5]

Roycv and all, yes the Deutches Museum is of the highest standard with many model ships of all eras and a few full-sized ones , including early submarines and aircraft.  It more of a national museum of engineering and the sciences full of interest, from van de Graff lightning generator to large model railway layout, marvellous book and gift shop. 4 years since I was there, hope it hasn't changed.   Don't start me on the Glasgow Museum of Transport that was going to be the Maritime Museum as befits a Clydeside venue and what happened to "the largest model boat collection in the world " , once displayed in the Kelvin Hall ?   Den Helder ex Royal Dutch Navy base now a vast open museum is worth a trip to the north of the Netherlands. Lots of full-size ships ancient and modern, steam, lifeboats, Lightship, tugs etc all afloat.  Submarine open on dry land is manned by ex-crew, English spoken of course.

[Colin Bishop]

I have been told that Richard Howard of Beale Park has just passed away. I wonder what will become of his huge collection of model boats displayed on the site.


Colin

[Arrow5]

Oh sad news, his collection included flying model aircraft too and a couple of classic cars.  RIP

[cos918]

I have been told that Richard Howard of Beale Park has just passed away. I wonder what will become of his huge collection of model boats displayed on the site.


Colin

Hello Colin
Thats sad to hear . The boats in the museum are only a small part of the collection . I wonder what will happen to them


John

[Colin Bishop]

If they are sold then I would think it will knock the bottom out of the market for a long time to come. Possibly some good bargains if you like buying your boats.


I did get the impression that Richard's collection was very much personal to him in which case there would probably not be much incentive on the part of the park to keep it. The current management doesn't appear to be interested in model boats.


Colin

[Buccaneer]

I went to a village Junior School about 20 miles north of London and in the last 2 years we were taken on an educational visit to London at the end of the Summer Term. One trip, in 1958 or 1959, was to Greenwich and included the Cutty Sark and The Maritime Museum. I can still recall the trip, though not much detail! There were, I know, lots of superb model boats in glass cases. I often think about going back but from comments expressed above suspect I would be very disappointed. Probably best to stick with the Great Dorset Steam Fair.

John

[meechingman]

I'm glad I did all these museums (several times) and the Cutty Sark with my Dad when I was (much!) younger, then. I was fascinated with everything I saw and no doubt still would be - if those same models and exhibits were still there. I'm all in favour of computerisation of records and photos, and interactive displays but it's got to be 'as well as', not 'instead of'.


I'll take the grandkids up to the Science Museum and Natural History Museum when they're a bit older but will give Greenwich and the Cutty Sark a miss.

[FsASTSyd1]

Hi Meech...... I would check as much as you can on line before you pay for the trip, unless it has much changed for the better, since I was there 12 or so years ago, you might be well disappointed. Didn't quite take to the odd aircraft suspended overhead with cars stacked up the walls towards it with a V2 alongside in the Science Museum.

[BFSMP]

Which is, or was  the museum with the two huge battleship gun barrels outside the main entrance, that I visited way back in the 1970's [I think]


And what were the barrels from. Can't remember much about the museum, but those guns certainly grabbed my attention at the time.


thanks.


Jim.