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

I always wanted to go to the Yelverton Paperweight Musuem but sadly it is now closed

I went there in the 80s.

It was as fantastic as you’d expect. 😆

Anyone mentions the Giant MacAskill Museum on Skye yet?

Excellent idlejon! I remember picking up a business card for it at Captain Jacks in Woolacombe in about 1992. I am truly sorry I didn’t get there to see over 1200 paperweights all in one venue 😥

Sir John Soane’s Museum in that London. Architectural and spatial anomalies in the Capital – ive been freelancing there for 15 years and still keep finding odd corners id never known of! If you go, don’t on a Saturday (RRRRRaaaammmedd!), but do try and get on a tour.
If youre outside London – why not try the Gairloch Museum in, err, Gairloch?
Lighthouses, illegal distillation, superb homemade interactive models and a crashed Liberator. Whats not to like?!

The grant museum in London near Euston is a great little weird museum. Also Tring Museum for stuffed wonderment

The Vesikko is WW!! Finnish submarine on the fortified islands of Suomenlinna in Helsinki harbour. the sub is the museum, so it’s tiny, cramped and absolutely fascinating. 134 ft long, crew of 17-20

I don’t think it’s open any more but the North Carr Lightship used to be more or less a satellite museum of the scottish fisheries museum at anstruther… And it was brilliant. Fascinating in its own right- last scottish lightship literally a metal lighthouse, attached to an unpowered small ship hull and chained (mostly) to the rocks, a massive manned buoy for a reef where a proper lighthouse couldn’t be built. Some very sad history too. It’s up at Dundee now and looks pretty shabby but we went around it almost every year as a kid, loved it.

This was pretty cool if your in Central London with a spare hour

http://www.testingmuseum.org.uk/index.html

I walk past the Kirkcaldy Testing Museum quite often – our London office is just along from there – often wondered what the hell it was all about!

toby mc – Member
If youre outside London – why not try the Gairloch Museum in, err, Gairloch?
Lighthouses, illegal distillation…

Illegal distillation – that will probably mention my family – plenty great tales of evading the Revenue.

I was going through the family pics the other day and found a pic of my granduncle with his still. He was charged a few times, but the proof magically disappeared. G/great grandfather was briefly jailed for it. They had a habit of robustly opposing capture. 🙂

Always had a soft spot for Cliffe Castle in Keighley, too. Obviously no budget, but they always tried hard – some top taxidermy, exhibitions and indoor beehive too. And free, so good for kids. Might be shut now, I know it was for a while.

It’s open again, quite an ecletic collection but plenty to interest for a couple of hours. The bird cages and greenhouses (attached to a cafe) used to be good fun too but we didn’t have time for them when I went back last.

Epicyclo – the still in question was found, buried in a peat bog. Full of Hooch…
BBSB – your Finnish boat has reminded me of another job I worked on. Woodside Ferry Terminal in Birkenhead features a German WW2 sub cut into sections. Fascinating and horrifying.
You could have sunk it if you used the loo incorrectly… An American bomber saved them the trouble.

northwind – I just had a look on Google Earth and a BIT shabby doesn’t come close

Couldn’t link but it’s here – what a shame
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Dundee,+Dundee+City/@56.4605377,-2.9612679,3a,75y,318.61h,87.11t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s3run-INledFDpXaLdX7Z5A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D3run-INledFDpXaLdX7Z5A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D100%26h%3D80%26yaw%3D354.72672%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x48864144ab639cd3:0x94e43b1e384be52a!6m1!1e1

Poor old bucket 🙁 They were seeking funds to restore it, last of its kind and all that but apparently none of the historic bunch are into it because it’s not actually a ship.

If it’s barometers made of leeches or severed human hands with magical powers to keep residents asleep allowing them to ne burgled, don’t miss Whitby Museum. We popped in today for the fossils(excellent and some worlds’s best specimens) but I’d forgotten how excellently bonkers some of their other stuff is.

For lighthouses, the Skerryvore museum on Tiree is interesting. The actual lighthouse is on a rock 10 miles out to sea, but you can look around the shore station. Rather impressive how they managed to build the lighthouse on a remote rock.

Sutton Hoo is great, but the one I was expecting to be rubbish that is hard to beat would be the Pencil Museum in Keswick. Just brilliant!

Just resurrecting this to plug

Home

Stopped off today and it’s a fascinating place about an amazing piece of WW1 history that I never knew existed, plus some harrowing stuff about Britain’s worst train crash which was nearby. Run by a great team of local enthusiasts.

loddrik – Member
Horniman. Does that count as a little museum?

It just looks small once you’re inside because the walrus is so big 🙂

Lark lane motor museum used to be good but its gone now. And the large object store of the Liverpool museum had some great stuff.

Williamson art gallery and museumn at Birkenhead, great scale models of fantastic big ships,

Transport museum down the Pacific road area of the docks, birkenhead,

Grasshopper steam engine woodside, birkenhead, now closed due to lack of cash,

Town hall museum birkenhead, closed due to lack of cash,

u635,full size german submarine cut into 4 parts with a diamond wire saw, and museum woodside, Birkenhead,

you want to go to Rhydymyn near mold, north wales the most secret plant during the second world war, for storing of highly dangerous chemical nerve gases for killing people, now a charity and open to the public on certain days, secret tunnels lots of history and more.

Haven’t read the thread, so don’t know if anyone has mentioned. But at Drumlanrig there’s wee history of the bike museum, which is class, well worth half an hour. It’s just a room basically, but brilliant.

Gilbert White’s house in Selborne, not massively interesting until you get to the Oats Museum, it really hits home just how double hard the gents in the Scott expedition were, and how much of a legend Capt Oats was. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Capt Oats or historic Arctic expedition.

For a small village on the outskirts of Huddersfield, we have not one, but TWO museums!
The first one is a group of converted weavers cottages and is dedicated to the area’s woollen industry: Colne Valley Museum[/url]
The other is a private place that an enthusiastic local has put together to display his collection of militaria. There doesn’t appear to be a website, but here’s a link to an article in the local paper: LINK

Pitt Rivers in Oxford, the most concentrated display in any gallery in the world.

Oh, there’s Todmorden Toy and Model Museum! Tiny, ramshackle, used for a Derren Brown thing once, full of disturbing old toys:

Huntsville prison museum in Texas bit depressing but they have got an original electric chair!

Anyone mention Brugge Chip Museum yet?

Hopewell Colliery Museum[/url] in the Forest of Dean is great, close to the trails so two birds with one stone.