The Museum is Temporarily Closed...


The Museum is temporarily closed...

We are temporarily closed at the moment. Last time we closed was to move the Museum from Queen Mary's Tower in the Inner Ward to the recently vacated Alma Block, in the Outer Ward. With the award of Heritage Lottery Funding the ambitious re-location project took plenty of dedication from both the staff and Trustees to move the Museum within the Castle.

But move it did (as the Museum had previously done in its past) and once display cases went in, the laborious task of installing objects and labels began. As I was trawling through my files this    afternoon I came across some of the photographs which documented the move. Obviously I can't miss an opportunity to provide another mannequin photo either! I remembered the laughs we had as we dressed them, followed by attempts to put them into their final locations. But the hard work and dedication paid off and the Museum was officially opened by Princess Alexandra in July 2015.

Closing the Museum in 2014 was a difficult decision and we had hoped to keep it open as long as possible before we moved from one building to another. Closing the Museum in March 2020 was also difficult but we have a duty to our staff, volunteers and visitors. I did the security check on the building yesterday, and walking around the gallery it seemed odd and eerily quiet. The objects and mannequins on display to a non-existent public, no gallery soundtrack, no cafe, no telephone calls. The objects on 'open storage' in their display cases waiting to be seen, with the stories still there waiting to be told. As unusual as it is for us to be temporarily closed, we will be back. And when we are we look forward to welcoming our visitors back through the door.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adaptable Bunnies!

Image
The Adaptable Knitted Rabbit Trail... As a Military Museum, we are not normally associated with these cottontail creatures. Especially the knitted variety. But what we do pride ourselves in is engaging with our visitors. And at this time of year our woolly friends like to make an appearance for our younger audience. Our original Easter holiday activity was a quiz and trail around the Museum but we soon found that our younger visitors over the holidays tended to be under ten years old, with many even younger. So our trail was not suitable. What the youngsters really wanted to do was something a little bit more basic.  Welcome to our annual Easter trail. The wee bunnies were created by my mum (thanks mum! x) after we decided that looking for things for a younger audience would be fun. We first trialled the idea, and it proved to be an immediate success. Plus the 12 little rabbits could easily slip into our display cases and the trail can be changed each year to offer ...
Read more

The Return of the Rabbits

Image
It doesn't seem five minutes since our knitted friends made an appearance on one of my blog posts. But then in April last year who would have thought that we would be in a lockdown 12 months later?   Our wee bunnies have once again become the theme of our social media over the Easter weekend. A little bit of fun both for staff and our virtual audience.  Several weeks ago we realised that we were in the same position as last year and would not be able to host an Easter trail for visitors in the Museum. However, last year we realised just before lockdown1, managed to photograph rabbits and put together a family-friendly trail before we retreated to our own homes. This year, it was not so easy and photographing the rabbits had to be undertaken during a weekly check of the Museum. So thanks to Angela who took on the challenge of photographing the bunnies round the gallery and then came up with the 'Elf on the Shelf' idea, pulling together a week of cheeky bunny posts. Working...
Read more

Put on those Rubber Gloves...

Image
We have now been open a week and all the staff are getting used to a new way of operating. All our visitors have been great, understanding the introduction of social distancing and the one-way system around the Museum. Our interactives are currently out of use, there is no children's trail at the reception desk and bottles of hand sanitiser are evident. But it is good to get the Museum back open. Even though my focus has now changed. Yes, my days are filled with cleaning. I don my gloves, pick up the cleaning bucket and head down to the gallery to polish the door handles and wipe hard surfaces with anti-bacteria spray. Although today I seem to have spent most of my time cleaning the toilets. I noticed that my purple signature was working its way down the checksheet as I wiped down the sink and the taps. Note to self - must remember the cloths are pink for sink and blue for loo. We are hitting the toilet cleaner hard so need to purchase a few more bottles next week. Floor cleaned, s...
Read more