Florence Nightingale Museum

Florence Nightingale Museum

On the Saturday before I went back to work, I headed down to the Florence Nightingale Museum. I had been planning to go for a while, but then COVID hit. The museum has reopened – albeit only on the first full weekend of each month – so I took this opportunity to visit. The museum, which is on the site of St Thomas’ Hospital, can be reached via Waterloo station or via Westminster station and then crossing Westminster Bridge, which is how I got there.

Turkish lantern
Florence’s famous lamp

The museum explores the life of Florence, the famous Crimean War nurse who was known as “The Lady with the Lamp”. The current exhibition Florence Nightingale in 200 Objects, People & Places marks the 200th anniversary of Florence’s birth in 1820 (originally planned for 2020, the exhibition has been extended into 2021). In the museum and exhibition there are countless artefacts that bring Florence to life and tell her story.

stuffed owl
Athena, Florence’s pet owl

The first section of the museum covers Florence’s childhood, growing up in a middle-class educated family. Artefacts such as photos, sketches and books belonging to her and her sister Parthenope are displayed here, alongside more unusual exhibits such as Florence’s pet owl Athena, stuffed after its death. Bibles and prayer books show Florence’s religious faith, and other books and novels reveal the breadth of her education.

photographs and paintings
Pictures of Florence and her sister

The next section looks at the time Florence spent nursing in the Crimea, with artefacts from the time including medicine chests, nurse’s uniforms and record books. Florence’s main strengths were in management and organisation, and she kept her trainee nurses in line – sometimes rather strictly. She also – crucially – implemented hygienic practices such as handwashing, which helped to reduce the death rate, as most soldiers died due to poor sanitation rather than injuries.

nurse's uniform
Nurse’s uniform and artefacts

After the Crimea, Florence set up a nursing school back in England and published Notes on Nursing, a classic of the genre. She influenced the sphere of nursing for decades to come. This section also looks at nursing in a wider context, and features other notable nurses such as Edith Cavell (her stuffed dog is on display here) and Mary Seacole. The special exhibition section at the back of the building had lots more objects including letters, photographs, documents, and even a Florence Nightingale Barbie which was released last year.

brown book
Nightingale’s ‘Notes on Nursing’

The museum is well worth a visit: it has plenty to see and everything is well organised and displayed. Book a visit soon and support this small but worthwhile museum.

FACTS

Address: St Thomas’ Hospital, 2 Lambeth Palace Road, London, SE1 7EW

Website: florence-nightingale.co.uk

Opening Hours: First full weekend of every month, 10.15am – 4.30pm

Price: Adult £9, concession £7, student £6, child £5

Benjamin Franklin House – Architectural Tour

The Benjamin Franklin House has been a visitor attraction in London for years, but I’d never got around to visiting, until now. Looking for something to do during my week off, I found the museum’s website which advised that architectural tours run every Friday. It’s not often I get a Friday off when I’m in London, so I booked straight away.

Benjamin Franklin House

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He was a polymath and one of the leading intellectuals of his time. The Grade 1 listed house is at 36 Craven Street, a Georgian side street not far from Charing Cross station and Trafalgar Square – it really is very central. It dates from around 1730, and Franklin lodged there for 16 years between 1757 and 1775 in his role as chief colonial diplomat. The street would have looked very different at the time – this was before the Embankment was built, so the Thames would have been much closer to the house.

brown door
Front door

As it turned out, it was a quiet day and there were only two of us on the tour, but the house had been decorated in red, white and blue in preparation for Independence Day celebrations at the weekend. We were shown around the house starting with the basement: a brown plaque is on display here that was originally on the side of the wrong house on this street. A room here is devoted to the history of the house, which served as a lodging house for much of its life before being converted into a hotel in the 20th century. In the late 1990s, the Friends of Benjamin Franklin House were granted the freehold to 36 Craven Street from the British government, and set about restoring the property.

display table
Human bones found during excavation

During the excavation, a number of human bones were found. It is believed that William Hewson, Franklin’s landlady’s son-in-law, was responsible for these remains: an early anatomist, he had been living in the house for two years and working in secret, as well as running an anatomy school. The basement is also where the kitchen is located, where food would be cooked for the landlady, her family and lodgers. The kitchen includes a recess built into the wall – historians aren’t certain what it is, but some believe it may have been a kind of early fridge.

sitting room
Sitting room

The ground floor was the main sitting room used by the family – as a valued and longstanding guest Franklin was also able to spend time here. The address gained a reputation as the ‘first American embassy’ as he used to invite statesmen and cultural figures to discuss events of the day. Many of the features in this room are original, such as the two-part window shutters, although parts of the fireplace are not. The floor slopes in places, being built on slightly uneven ground. On this floor, our guide also showed us the mechanism by which the door would have been kept shut by means of a chain.

window
Window featuring original shutters

Upstairs is the set of rooms inhabited by Franklin, although at the time it would have been one big room. He apparently used to ‘sunbathe’ naked with the windows wide open – luckily this was early in the morning so no one else would have had to see this sight. Franklin also used to go swimming in the Thames to keep fit – presumably the pollution levels were lower then than they would later become. The back of the house holds a key and kite display in honour of one of Franklin’s most famous experiments, and the fireplace contains a bust of Franklin, currently topped with a jaunty party hat.

large spacious room
Franklin’s room

Above this were rooms used by the landlady, similar in style to Franklin’s below, while above this were rooms used by other lodgers. Today these rooms host educational resources, including Franklin’s own invented instrument, a glass harmonica.The tour was fascinating and I definitely plan to return for the Historical Experience.

glass harmonica
Glass harmonica

Heath Robinson Museum

Heath Robinson Museum

The Heath Robinson Museum is located in Pinner, north-west London, inside the Memorial Park. This isn’t too far from me, so I paid a visit one weekend. I have to admit, I’d only vaguely heard of Heath Robinson before visiting, but I was impressed by what I found.

William Heath Robinson was born in North London in 1872, the son of an illustrator and engraver. He trained at Islington School of Art, then at The Royal Academy Schools. He hoped to become a landscape painter, but the need to earn a living drew him towards more commercial form of art, so (like his older brothers) he entered the world of illustration. He illustrated editions of Shakespeare and Kipling among others in the course of an illustrious career. Later in life he moved to the Pinner suburbs to better support his growing family.

Heath Robinson Museum display

As well as illustrations, Heath Robinson drew humorous satirical cartoons, which made him immensely popular, especially during World War I as his cartoons, poking fun at enemy propaganda, increased morale among the troops. Perhaps most famously, he became known for complex yet humorous illustrations of all kinds of weird and wonderful contraptions, which satirised unnecessary complexity and bureaucracy, punctured pomposity and emphasised human weakness.

These illustrations were my favourites, although Heath Robinson was clearly a very talented man and all aspects of his work are worth exploring. The museum gallery takes a chronological approach to his life and work and I left feeling as though I knew a good deal about this unique artist.

The Museum also has another gallery which hosts special exhibitions relating to illustration. The current exhibition is Fairies in Illustration which had many images of fairies spanning several years, including pictures by the likes of Brian Froud and Cicely Mary Barker as well as Heath Robinson himself.

Fairy drawing
A fairy by Brian Froud

I definitely recommend a visit to the Heath Robinson Museum, even if – perhaps especially if – you don’t know anything about the artist. It’s a little gem.

FACTS

Address: 50 West End Lane, Pinner, HA5 1AE

Website: heathrobinson.org

Opening Hours: 11am-4pm Thursday – Saturday

Price: Adults £6, 65+ £5, disabled people and students 25+ £4, students 24 & under and children free

Bank of England Museum – a spook-tacular soirée!

I visited the Bank of England Museum on the Friday before Halloween to attend a spooky event, featuring the chance to explore the museum after dark, not to mention a ghost story.

It was fun to explore the museum without the crowds; even though I’d been there before, the experience was different this time round. I enjoyed talking to the museum staff about various Bank histories and legends.

Image of a storyteller in front of a 19th century photo of the Bank
Ghost stories at the Bank of England

The ghost story, telling the tale of Sarah Whitehead (the Bank Nun), was chilling and enjoyable. Cashier Paul Whitehead was arrested for forgery, convicted, and duly hanged in 1812. Friends tried to keep the tragedy a secret from his sister, Sarah, but one day when she visited the Bank to ask about her brother, another cashier blurted out the truth. The shock affected her mind, and from then on she would turn up at the Bank every day to ask about her brother, wearing a long black dress and a black crepe veil that gave her her nickname. Her ghost is said to still visit the bank, dressed in black, and still asking about her brother.

Discover Greenwich Visitor Centre

Greenwich Visitor Centre

Not to be confused with the Greenwich Heritage Centre, which is located in Royal Arsenal, the Discover Greenwich Visitor Centre is located near the Cutty Sark, in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College. Housed in the Pepys Building, originally an engineering laboratory for the ORNC, it opened in 2010.

The free Centre offers an introduction to the history and attractions within the Greenwich World Heritage Site. It has information on the history of the Palace of Placentia, models of Christopher Wren’s original designs for Greenwich Hospital, the carved heads originally intended to decorate the exterior of the Painted Hall, and a model of a lion originally intended for external decoration, too. I particularly enjoyed the section about Greenwich Palace, the birthplace of Henry VIII, and the archaeological work that has discovered more about the palace and its layout and decoration.

Lion

The Centre has other displays about maritime Greenwich and about the history of the Royal Naval College, which occupied Greenwich Hospital and the surrounding area between 1873 and 1998. It also has a Tourist Information desk and a gift shop.

Greenwich Visitor Centre

This free visitor centre is well worth checking out as introduction to Greenwich.

FACTS

Address: 2 Cutty Sark Gardens, Old Royal Naval College, London, SE10 9LW

Website: ornc.org/visitor-centre

Opening Hours: 10am-5pm

Prices: Free

London Mithraeum

Bloomberg SPACE Entrance
Bloomberg SPACE Entrance

I read about the London Mithraeum on the London’s Museums blog, and immediately put it on my list of places to visit. You have to book in advance, but entry is free, and I signed up to visit in the morning of the best Saturday of the year so far. It was bright, sunny and not too cold, and as I arrived at Bank station well before my entry time, I spent a few minutes just wandering around the area and enjoying the outdoors (something which is highly unusual for me).

'Forgotten Streams' by Cristina Iglesias
‘Forgotten Streams’ by Cristina Iglesias

History

The Mithraeum is located in the basement of Bloomberg SPACE, which is on Walbrook, just next to Bank station. The street was named after the Walbrook river which used to flow over this very spot; I also spied an artwork by Cristina Iglesias marking this lost river. The river is important to the Mithraeum, as it was the soggy conditions of the soil in this spot that allowed the preservation of so many incredible Roman artefacts.

The Roman settlement of Londinium was founded nearly 2,000 years ago. Almost two centuries later, a resident built a temple to the god Mithras on the banks of the Walbrook. Eventually covered over and forgotten, it was rediscovered in 1954, its purpose only uncovered on the last day of excavations when a head of Mithras was found. The discovery sparked great public interest, with more than 30,000 people queuing up to see the site on some days. The Temple was dismantled and reconstructed elsewhere, opening in 1962.

Bloomberg acquired the site in 2010, and worked with the City of London and conservation specialists to restore the Temple to its original location and allow the public to access it.

Display of Roman artefacts found during the excavation
Display of Roman artefacts found during the excavation

My Visit

I entered the building at the appropriate time, had my ticket scanned, and was immediately confronted by a very un-Roman scene: a work by Isabel Nolan, Another View from Nowhen, comprising a colourful tapestry and a large open sculpture. before heading towards the display case at the back of the building. Gazing in awe at the huge range of archaeological finds I was offered an electronic tablet to help make sense of them. As previously mentioned, the damp earth allowed for many objects to be preserved that would ordinarily have decayed long before, including a door, sandals, and writing tablets. There were the usual pottery fragments and decorative acessories, including a striking bull ornament supposed to represent Taurus.

Heading down the stairs to the next level, a timeline on the wall leads you back through time via significant events in London’s history. At the bottom, models of important discoveries with interactive displays help you to understand the significance of Mithras and the Temple before you head into the Temple itself.

Writing tablet featuring the first recorded mention of 'Londinium'
Writing tablet featuring the first recorded mention of ‘Londinium’

Who was Mithras?

Scholars have been studying the cult of Mithras for two hundred years, but even so not a lot is known. Most of what we know is down to interpretation. The central icon of the cult, an reconstruction of which is displayed here, is an image of Mithras killing a bull, which may be a battle or a sacrifice. It has been interpreted as a creation myth and possibly a vision of the universe, owing to the Zodiac symbols surrounding one of the models. Other Mithras icons have been found all over Europe, and they and the archeological sites from which they come have helped scholars to deduct what a Mithraic ritual might have been like.

The Mithraeum
The Mithraeum

Inside the Temple

Temple ‘experiences’ take place every twenty minutes. You enter a long dark room, with a walkway around the edge of the wall and jutting out slightly into the centre. Audio and lighting effects create a spooky atmosphere, as if Romans were walking into the Temple to worship. It’s hugely atmospheric and effective, and you get a sense of what the Temple might have looked like and how it all fits together. A metal frame at the end shows where the model of Mithras would have been.

Mithras
Mithras

To sum up…

The Mithraeum is amazing and well worth a visit. The display is great and well-organised, and the temple itself is very atmospheric. Don’t miss if you have any interest at all in the Roman history of London.

FACTS

Address: 12 Walbrook, London, EC4N 8AA

Website: londonmithraeum.com

Opening Hours: 10-6 Tues-Sat, 11-5 Sun (advance booking recommended)

Price: Free

Royal Academy of Music Museum

Museum entrance
Museum entrance

Getting back into museum visiting mode, I paid a visit this weekend to a place I’ve been meaning to go for a long time: the Royal Academy of Music Museum. I’ve attended a few concerts at the Royal Academy of Music and often walked past the free museum, but I’ve never had the chance to go as it’s only open during the day. I headed down on Saturday afternoon, turning left out of Baker Street station and passing the queue of expectant tourists waiting to go into Madam Tussaud’s.

The museum is located in the RAM’s premises on Marylebone Road. It has an entrance area with a gift shop (not to mention a well-stocked selection of music books) and displays on three floors.

Stradivari violin
Stradivari violin

The ground floor covers the history of the RAM, which was founded in 1822 by a group of aristocrats. The Academy’s first premises were on Tenterden Street; the first pupils were youngsters aged 10-15 and the President was former child prodigy William Crotch. Eventually the Academy attracted royal patronage, with George IV signing the Royal Charter in 1830.

Early piano
Early piano

The rest of the ground floor is given over to special exhibitions; the current exhibition focuses on the Spencer Collection, which came to the Academy from the estate of Robert ‘Bob’ Spencer, professor of Early English Song at the Academy for many years. Spencer was a former librarian, and loved tracking down and collecting the rare manuscripts and instruments that form the backbone of his fascinating collection, which was instrumental (pun intended) in igniting the study of early music in England.

Steinway piano
Steinway piano

The first floor is the home of the Strings Gallery, which has some fine examples of harps, violins, violas, a cello and a double bass. One violin is a Stradivari. The Piano Gallery is located on the second floor, with a number of fine examples of instruments from several centuries, including Georgian square pianos, early nineteenth century Broadwood instruments (one of these was gifted to Beethoven) and a Steinway grand.

The gallery is a very pleasant place to visit for anyone with an interest in music and instruments; it’s full of fascinating historical information.

FACTS

Address: 1–5 York Gate, Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5HT

Website: ram.ac.uk/museum

Opening Hours: 11.30am–5.30pm Monday to Friday, 12pm–4pm Saturday

Price: Free

London Sewing Machine Museum

Entrance to the store/museum on Balham High Road
Entrance to the store/museum on Balham High Road

It’s the start of a fresh new year and I really want to get on to visiting some of the many, many museums in and around London. With that in mind, on the first Saturday of 2018 I headed down to the London Sewing Machine Museum, located near Tooting Bec Station in south London.

Industrial machines
Industrial machines

Industrial machine close-up
Industrial machine close-up

The Museum is on the top floor of the premises of the Sewing and Craft Superstore, just round the corner of the station. You go through the front entrance and up the stairs to be confronted with – unsurprising given the name of the museum – sewing machines. There is a room full of them, in fact, all of which are examples of those used in industry (the museum owner supplied all of the machines used in the film Made in Dagenham). In a room just beyond are the machines designed for domestic use, including several miniatures, a number designed to be folded away after use, and one that can be disguised as a lion when not in use. The shop front in the museum is from the original branch of the Wimbledon Sewing Machine Co. Ltd, founded by the grandfather of the present company director, Ray Rushton. He inherited his grandfather’s passion for sewing machines and is responsible for many of the collection’s gems.

Original shop front
Original shop front

Barthélemy Thimonnier's 1829 sewing machine
Barthélemy Thimonnier’s 1829 sewing machine

Victorian sewing machine
Victorian sewing machine

I’ve never used a sewing machine myself – I’ve always found them to be a bit scary – but I was fascinated by the museum, in no small part thanks to the enthusiastic volunteer who gave us a short guided tour of the space. If it hadn’t been for her I would certainly have missed Barthélemy Thimonnier’s unobtrusive wooden machine, the first widely-used and practical machine, invented in 1829. More obvious was the ornate Victorian machine gifted to Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter and used by her nurse for many years.

Charlie Chaplin's mother's sewing machine
Charlie Chaplin’s mother’s sewing machine

Boy George alongside the model that helped create his costumes
Boy George alongside the model that helped create his costumes

I certainly hadn’t expected to come across Charlie Chaplin and Boy George in the museum. Machines associated with both entertainers can be found here: the original sewing machine belonging to Chaplin’s mother, and an identical model to that used by Boy George’s mother to sew many of his early costumes.

The museum is surprisingly interesting even for those who aren’t massively into sewing machines, and it’s free too. Well worth visiting if you have a free Saturday afternoon.

FACTS

Address: 308 Balham High Road, London, SW17 7AA

Website: craftysewer.com/acatalog/London_Sewing_Machine_Museum

Opening Hours: 2am-5pm on the first Saturday of the month

Price: Free (donations welcomed)

The National Portrait Gallery

National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery

On the same day I visited the Supreme Court, I decided to pop into the National Portrait Gallery. I’ve been there a few times in the past, but it’s been a while since I’ve gone through it thoroughly.

The NPG was founded in 1856 and was the first portrait gallery in the world. It moved to its current site in 1896. As the name suggests, it contains portraits of the great and the good from the late medieval period onwards – the pictures have been chosen for the significance of the sitter, not the artist. It’s interesting to see how this changes over time: in the sixteenth century it’s mainly monarchs, with the odd courtier; later on the litany includes scientists, artists and poets, and the modern day portraits include celebrities: singers, actors and sports people.

The Gallery is arranged chronologically from the top to the bottom, so I headed to the top floor via the escalator. The first things you see are casts from the tombs of medieval kings, this from a time before portraits were common. From then it’s straight into the Tudor era, starting with a few Tudor-era portraits of medieval kings. I still remember the first time I saw this part of the Gallery: I was fresh from studying the Tudors at A Level, and it was amazing to see the paintings I’d only ever seen in textbooks in the flesh. Queen Elizabeth has a strong presence but there are also famous pictures of Henry VIII and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Paintings dating from the Jacobean period onwards cover monarchs as well as famous scientists, writers and artists, including the famous Chandos portrait of Shakespeare and one of my favourites – a dramatic painting of poet John Donne. I naturally gravitate towards the writers – I love the picture of Lord Byron towards the end of these galleries.

Statue of Victoria and Albert
Statue of Victoria and Albert

Works from the Victorian era can be found on the floor below; these are very, well, Victorian. There is a room for politicians and a corridor for famous public faces, plus many representations of Queen Victoria herself. My favourite room here is the writers’ room, which contains Branwell Brontë’s painting of his three famous sisters, as well as a picture of another of my favourite authors, Thomas Hardy. Another of my favourites is the dashing portrait of a young Lord Tennyson.

The early twentieth-century gallery has recently been refurbished, and it was good to see it looking refreshed. In general this isn’t my favourite artistic period, but there are some interesting portraits here of the likes of Virginia Woolf, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Sir Winston Churchill.

The Gallery hosts regular special exhibitions (for which a charge is made) and offers late-night opening on Thursdays and Fridays. It’s smaller and a bit less daunting than the nearby National Gallery, but it’s well worth a visit.

FACTS

Address: St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE

Website: npg.org.uk

Opening Hours: Daily 10am-6pm, open until 9pm Thurs & Fri

Price: Free (charge for special exhibitions)

Croydon Airport Visitor Centre

Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport

When you think of airports in London, you probably think of Heathrow or Gatwick, but before these airports, there was… Croydon. Based in South London, it was the main airport for London before it was replaced by Northolt Aerodrome, London Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport. Croydon Airport was Britain’s first major international airport, coming into being during World War I and closing in 1959.

Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport

The Historic Croydon Airport Trust, also known as the Croydon Airport Society, was founded in 1978 and became a registered charity in 1983. It aims to conserve the history and heritage of London Croydon Airport for the community. The Croydon Airport Visitor Centre is a ‘micro museum’ run by the charity, and is open to the public once a month. I headed down one Sunday to find out more.

Model of the airport
Model of the airport (plane is not to scale…)

History

London Croydon Airport was once Britain’s major and only international gateway airport. It played a significant part in early twentieth century British history and helping to shape global air travel. The airport was the birthplace of Air Traffic Control – the control tower here was the world’s first. It also played an important part as the site of many world record-breaking flights, including those undertaken by Amy Johnson. The international distress call ‘Mayday’ was coined here.

Inside the airport
Inside the airport

Airport House, as the terminal building and control tower are now known, are Grade 2* listed.

Control tower
Control tower

My Visit

I joined a tour pretty much as soon as I arrived. My guide was very informative and took us around the building, showing us where visitors used to arrive and depart, taking us to the control tower at the back before heading up the stairs to view the displays. He regaled us with interesting historical info that complemented the exhibition.

In the control tower
In the control tower

There are some flight simulator games at the top of the control tower to keep kids happy, but the whole site should be interesting for adults. There are some original aeroplane seats which seemed much more comfortable and luxurious than the ones we get nowadays, and displays about the history of the site. It made me think of Agatha Christie for some reason, and made me feel nostalgic for the good old days when you could turn up at the airport with a bag and hop on a plane without all the queuing and security checks we have to go through now.

A visit to Croydon Airport is definitely worth it. Keep an eye on the website for details of open days.

FACTS

Address: Airport House, Purley Way, Croydon, CR0 0XZ

Website: croydonairport.org.uk

Opening Hours: First Sunday of the month, 11am-4pm.

Price: Free