The best "little" museum that you have ever been to

http://www.aviationmuseum.net

Spent the day here. Some fantastic stuff and run by volunteers.

Soberingly 436 men from the air base that used to be there were lost in less than two years.

Puzzling place Keswick

http://www.keswick.org/what-to-do/attractions/puzzling-place

Ooh, I’ve been there, loved it. Since you’re around, you could head up the coast if you want to see a real “little” museum.

http://www.mundesleymaritimemuseum.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

http://kotsanas.com/gb/index.php

David Coulthard museum. Just dont expect a f1 car in dumfries…

Vasa Museum, Stockholm. Its not little in size but its all about “one wee ship”.

http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/

https://brokenships.com/en in Zagreb

Broken hearts / love rifts. All the props and stories behind some great breakups.

Princetown jail up on Dartmoor, fascinated me as kid how intricate the workmanship on their makeshift tools were. If only they put as much effort into their lives before they got nicked.

If the weather is too foul for you to ride Innerleithen, pop into the National Trust’s Robert Smail’s print works. There’s more to it than meets the eye.

The Peak District lead mining museum in Matlock was our best find… Great for tweens and adults alike

http://www.shoreham-aircraft-museum.co.uk
Great little battle of britain museum with loads of bits of british and german aircraft, nice little tea room too, great on a sunday morning ride sitting in the sun amongst bombs and propellers

local plug for the Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge, rammed – no room for another thing.

Horniman. Does that count as a little museum?

U.S. Rangers Centre, Carrickfergus, NI. Small and quaint cottage but full of really good stuff.

I went to Brooklands many years ago, probably 1990-1. It was dead there so I was wandering around on my own in the aircraft hangar and the curator started talking to me about planes and next thing was inviting me to sit in the cockpits, use the controls etc, and giving me a guided tour.

I went into a huge hangar next, where they were restoring a crashed bomber (Wellington iirc?) I seem to remember that they were using some of the people who had built the planes in the first place, and I arrived just as a party of German tourists walked in, including a few Luftwaffe pilots. I’ve rarely had such a fascinating day out but of course the experience may be rather different these days. 🙂

Insect circus museum.

The wee one in Fort William . Great little place. The museum, that is.

Orkney Wireless Museum[/url] for the star attraction – the first TV on Orkney built by two brothers called Twatt. Being told how the Twatts built a telly was pretty good. The telly on display isn’t the original one as built by the Twatt brothers, but a replica, built by the daughter of one of the Twatts. Whose name wasn’t Emma

Hawkinge aerodrome was a good one, used to be full sized when I was a kid, but now just a couple of tin huts.
Also, there is the Apothecary’s Loft and Old Operating Theatre up that London, just round the corner from London Bridge station.

Southport Museum in the Botanical gardens is great. +1 for Keswick museum and its petrified cat

Yorkshire mining museum is really good

I’ll chip in with two aviation museums

http://www.dehavillandmuseum.co.uk
Dedicated to De Havilland, as you’d expect!. Not that big, but you can get inside most of the exhibits. Aircraft are a mix of military and commercial/private.

also

http://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk
Leans heavily towards the early sound barrier breaking attempts as this was the airfield that the flights took off from before going on their high speed runs along the coast
The aircraft here are in beautiful condition

Museum of packaging in London . Brilliant

Quex near Ramsgate, more of a nice house with lots of weird things collected aound the world by the family.
+1 for Horniman in South London too.

The Museum Of Victorian Inventions outside Whitby is amazing, it’s in a bloke’s extension and his collection of wonderful victorian science equipment that he will demonstrate for you with lots of lights, flashes and bangs! He can only take four or five people at a time and prides himself on being higher rated on trip advisor than Whitby Abbey!

Some good stuff to investigate here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/9312875/Londons-most-unusual-museums-50-of-the-best-part-one.html

The Denny Ship Tank in Dumbarton is pretty cool – it’s not much like a museum, it’s just like they closed up for the weekend and you’re left to wander about and poke into things.

Or there’s the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow Uni – great for mutants:

There’s also an anatomy museum with human versions, but you have to know who to ask to see that one…

Darfield Museum, Barnsley

Russian Kinetic Art at http://www.sharmanka.com in Glasgow.

Any small rural museum in New Zealand. Can also be mistaken for peoples houses or entire villages. Time travel you can touch.

Captain Cook museum in Staithes. Delightfully eccentric.

http://www.internalfire.com/

The museum of the diesel engine. Not the mobile diesel engine, no, that’d be boring- who’s interested in cars? This is the real deal, 4 halls full of old pumps, mains electricity generators… Oh and a load of old phones, for reasons.

(I like that they have a merlin engine just stuck in a corner… “Yeah, that’s out of a plane or something, I dunno why we have it. But check this out, it used to run the lights for a big house in aberystwth, how cool is that?”)

Also excellent exhibit explanations. “We had £500, and this was on ebay for £500”. Doesn’t mention the bottle of cheap wine that you know perfectly well was involved with that curating decision.

It all makes no sense whatsoever and generally gives the impression that some mad people collected so many engines that the only way to avoid being sectioned was to open a museum. But it’s ace and I highly recommend it if you’re in the area, the place just exudes passion and fumes.

National Cycle Museum in Llandrindod Wells.

http://www.internalfire.com/

+1

Eccentric and fun

http://kulturland.rlp.de/einrichtungen/e/westwallmuseum-bad-bergzabern/%5B/url%5D in 2002.

Its basically one Siegfried Line gun emplacement in someone’s back yard. A nice retired German guy was a volunteer who ran the place and spoke good English. He gave us directions to a nearby set of concrete dragon’s teeth (antitank obstacle).

Then he asked if we were interested in the Maginot Line and went on to tell us about one of the forts that the French military had kept control of and still used parts of for communications. It is open for tours one day a year, and it was that day! 😯 So we went!!! 😀

The pencil museum in Keswick – always worth a visit, especially if someone’s not been before !!

The Titanic museum in Inverness. Its a rather large home made boat in a small garden. Plus several other interesting old boats and a submarine. http://www.shipspace.co.uk/

Mr Potter’s Museum of Curiosities at the Jamainca Inn, Bodmin Moor. Sadly closed in 2003.

http://www.warmuseumaskifou.com/E_index.html

There’s a brilliant little natural history museum between Nafplio and Epidavros in the Peloponnese

http://www.museumsnorfolk.org.uk/fenland-and-west-norfolk-aviation-museum

Tangmere and the De Havilland Museum as mentioned above.

Brooklands is still brilliant.

Not so little, but the pumping station at Kempton is excellent, as is the one at Crofton on the Kennet and Avon Canal.

National Speedway museum inside Paradise wildlife park , Broxbourne, Herts.
They have loads of beautiful speedway bikes plus a wonderful retro Workinton Comets tabbard/bib thingy. 🙂

Went to the Lloyd George museum not far from Cricieth in the summer.

Loads of interesting info and artefacts but apparently at risk of closure (said a man in a shop in Cricieth anyway) which would be a real pity if true. Support it if you’re over that way on your travels I’d say!