Inside the Museum of London

It’s been a month since a very busy February half term, and although everyone is back to school, there is no let-down in our work as Visitor Services Hosts.

The Dickens and London exhibition is proving to be extremely popular and with just three months to go until it runs its course in June, tickets are still high in demand. To avoid disappointment and make use of our advance ticket discount, book your tickets at least one day in advance!

Remember, admission to the Museum of London and the permanent galleries are free, and so are all our Host-led activities such as our daily gallery tours, as well as interesting, on-the-spot short talks on objects within our collections.

Our free gallery tours are every day at 11am, 12pm, 3pm and 4pm and last approximately 45 minutes – perfect if you are in the City and looking for something to do during your lunch break!

From ancient archaeological artefacts discovered on the Thames foreshores to Roman Londinium and Anglo-Saxon Lundenwich, and from the Great Fire and Newgate Prison to the Victorian shops, Suffragettes and the Poll Tax Riots, the tours will leave you with knowledge and a new-found passion for this World City that is London.

If you don’t have time to join one of our tours, you don’t have to miss out! Every day we offer short, 10 minute talks on some of the most interesting objects within our galleries. You can also support the museum by purchasing a Museum Higlights book for £5. This is not only a great souvenir but also excellent accompaniment to your visit to our Museum.

At the Museum of London, we strive very hard to make our collections accessible to everyone, and have therefore started to offer tours to visually impaired visitors. Should you know someone who could benefit from one of our VisualEyes tours, please call the Museum of London box office on 020 7001 9844 to arrange a free tour.

Giusy

Happy New Year from the Visitor Services team and welcome back after what has been a very busy festive period for the Hosts here at the Museum of London.

To start of the New Year, I give just a quick update of the events and activities over Christmas, and what you can expect in the following months.

I am very happy to report that our very first Santa and Scrooge’s Victorian Grottoes were a runaway success, and greatly exceeded our wildest expectations. The Hosts have put a lot of hard work and effort into making a success of the project, and can give themselves a well-deserved pat on the back for job well done.

Both Santa and Scrooge were very popular with children and parents alike, and if 2011 was anything to go by, we anticipate another sell-out event for 2012 and anyone interest in visiting will be well-advised to book in advance!

It was not just Santa and Scrooge which made headlines. Our much advertised Dickens exhibition opened with much pomp and ceremony in December, and kept us Hosts on our toes trying to keep up for demand for tickets.

A lot of time, energy and resources have gone into making this one of our most exciting exhibitions in the Museum’s history, and the positive feedback from both visitors and the press alike is a great reward for everyone involved in the exhibition.

It is the first major Charles Dickens exhibition in the UK in more than 40 years and includes original manuscripts, his desk and chair, as well as a specially commissioned film to explore the similarity between London at night time today and the city which Dickens had described 150 years ago. Book in advance to qualify for discounted tickets!

I also want to welcome our new Hosts who joined us recently. Some of them are in the photo above.

After successfully completing two weeks of training, they’ve been thrown into the deep end and shown remarkable resilience, and also brought a lot of enthusiasm to the team for the New Year.

I speak for the whole team when I say that we look forward to welcoming you to the Museum during your next visit!

Giusy

Hi! As you might know the Museum of London is getting organised this year to host the most looked-forward event of Christmas time ever, your chance to meet the big man in red!

As a foreigner I became very curious when I first heard of Santa’ Grotto, which is not a very popular event in Italy so I undertook some research to find out a little bit more and unearthed few interesting facts.

Some scholars think that the name originated from the Latin word ‘crypt’ or the medieval ‘crota’, both coming from the Greek ‘krypta’, which means cave.
In north Italy the crotto began as a meeting place for people since there were no taverns in the neighbourhood, and so it was perfect to be used as a cool place for storing and maturing wine, cheese and sausages. In English language grotto literally means ‘artificial cave’.

Here we go, that’s what it is all about: Santa’ Claus in a simulated cave. But why would that be the ideal location for him?

Only one day is left now until the event kicks off on 10 December and every one in Visitors Services are abuzz trying to get everything in order and ready for the big day.

Click here if you want to purchase a ticket for your toddler.

A few hosts had the opportunity to select the presents for this year’s Santa and Scrooge’s Grotto, across both the Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands.

It was an enjoyable experience, taking them back to childhood, thinking about what children under 5 and over 5 would appreciate, whilst trying to keep with our Victorian theme. We were all able to be ‘Santa’s helpers’ by wrapping the presents as well, all pitching in with our own techniques on how to attempt this huge task of nearly 1300 individual gifts!

Someone has been having nightmares about wrapping his own presents for a while now! Staff from retail has been particularly helpful during the ordering process, and allowing us to store all of our items in their store was a great help.

Santa and Scrooge’s Grotto in our Victorian Walk promise to bring Dickens’ London alive and recapture the festive spirit. Be sure not to miss out on this highly anticipated event!

Giusy

Hello! Last Friday 11 November, 26 pupils from a local school in the Barbican took over the role of hosts at the Museum of London for one day.

The initiative is a fantastic opportunity which sees children actively involved in various jobs and present them with different challenges and issues about how organisations are run. This was an important day which is part of a wider national event led by the Children’s Commissioner for England.

The kids, aged 10 and 11 years old, worked really hard in preparation for the day, as they came on two occasions beforehand to spend time in the galleries to research some objects and get acquainted with general operational duties required by the role of Visitor Services Hosts.

Some of the permanent hosts got engrossed in the project and provided some training to the children in collaboration with the Learning Team.

We took them through how to conduct public presentations, how to structure their research and what being a host stands for at the Museum of London.
Some got extremely thrilled at the prospect of telling other children and adults off for the use of flash photography in the galleries or even calling the security team in the worst case scenario.

I presume there’s nothing that can make a child feel more important at a certain age!

Delivering small public talks (our well-known daily Objects in Focus) was made one of their most important missions.

The sessions were accurately prepared by them and were delivered every hour between 11am and 3pm and presented a number of objects with a central thread: London Transportation.

We had extraordinary presentations on World War Two and the London Underground, Roman horses, Thames Tunnel, Model Y Ford and Medieval shoes.

Then, at 11am they joined the Museum staff to hold two minutes of silence in the main foyer and laid a wreath that they had made in honour of Remembrance Day.

We were all very curious about how the day would unfold and were especially excited to support the kids and make the most of the day.

If you were here on Takeover Day you would have been hard pressed to miss our hosts. They were kitted with radios and custom made pink Museum of London polo-shirts.

We were all very impressed by their professional approach to both their responsibilities and visitors alike.

I was amazed by the confidence of some speaking over the tannoy, approaching visitors to promote their talks in the galleries or greeting them with a big smile when entering through the doors.

They even sold few Museum Highlights (click here if you want to purchase a copy on line), and I heard one little girl speaking in two foreign languages!

The day was a real success and we were all very pleased to be part of the whole event. Rumours are circulating that we will repeat the experience again next year.

The visitor services team is currently busy preparing for Santa’s and Scrooge’s Grotto exhibition.

Do you know our faces?

Who do you think will be Santa and Scrooge?

Read my next post to take a peep at our preparations. We are doing everything from scratch!

Visit our page to know more on the event

Ciao!

Giusy

Hello once again everyone, I am excited to share the latest news and developments from the Visitor Service Hosts over the last couple of weeks. In this post I would like to highlight the work that goes into developing one of our bespoke visitor tours.

Recently our Learning Project Manager Isabel was approached by a group of 15 visually impaired prospective visitors, who along with their helpers, were interested in coming along to the Museum of London.

Add-Learning group in their second day following a tour of our Medieval gallery

With Isabel’s help, hosts Daniela, Arna and Ed created a bespoke object handling session using original artefacts tailored to the groups needs.

The group consisted of retired adults from various backgrounds, all very knowledgeable about British history, who once a year arrange a visit to a different city, and visit a particular museum.

This year, they arranged a visit to London and naturally, they chose the Museum of London to brush up on their knowledge of the capital.

The group requested three tours and three object handling sessions in our Roman, Medieval and War, Plague and Fire galleries.

A visitor feeling a small head of a saint from a Medieval monastery

For the Great Fire of London day they had a real brick to touch from Pudding Lane (dug from the excavation of 1979), a medieval bowling ball, and a bell from a post you would tie your horse to whenever you rode to London.

Arna also showed a money box which was used in London’s theatres dating from the 17th century and a toy gun that could apparently fire for real – and hurt people in those times.

Money boxes were used in 17th century theatres as we know that spectators would regularly watch one act and then decide to remain or leave; if they stayed they had to pay a fee. In the audience there were a lot of people carrying such money boxes in order to collect the cash from them. Once filled up these ‘assistants’ would then take the boxes to the office to count what collected. That’s why we still call it the ‘box office’.

Arna shows a round wooden piece, one of the mystery objects used during the handling session

I was present in the galleries during the tours as well as in our Clore Learning Centre for the object handling sessions and was not surprised to have received an excellent report from hosts and visitors alike. Ed told me that the whole experience was fun and interesting and the feedback from the group universally positive. Even the three lovely guide dogs seemed to have enjoyed it!

Ed answering challening questions on Roman artefacts

The part that they all enjoyed most were the handling sessions because it’s an experience that really allows you examine objects used and held many years ago and to connect with the past.

We have been trained to deliver tours to visually impaired visitors and we offer free daily VocalEyes tours whenever they are requested. This experience however is entirely different. Daniela, for example, learnt a new tour for the occasion and I am sure they gained some good knowledge of how to lead such groups around the Museum in future.

Daniela presents a 11th century horseshoe. Horses at that time were very small, this shoe would fit a modern pony!

In collaboration with our Learning Department we are now considering developing the experience further so that it can be offered to other adult groups and children.

Visit our web page to find out more about our facilities for visitors with impairments.

I will write a new post soon on something absolutely special happening in November.

Keep reading my blog. Ciao!

Giusy

Hello everyone, Giusy here again from the Museum’s Visitor Services Team. I hope you read and enjoyed my last post on Ed’s mail making. You are still on time to catch up here if you haven’t!

In this post I focus on the workshops developed by my colleagues Stephanie and Joanna.

Stephanie has run a Victorian object handling workshop which has looked specifically at objects found in the kitchen and to do with food and drink, for example butter pats and toast forks.

During the session she used pictures to illustrate how kitchens have changed over the time and she loved to talk about different technologies and appliances that you find in the kitchen. For the kids to take home, she has offered some examples of Victorian Recipes to try.
She has enjoyed a lot doing this workshop, because it allowed children to actually handle real Victorian objects. One of her tricks was not to tell the kids what the objects were so to make them guess. It was nice I am sure to see their expressions when discovering what the objects were used for, for example when it came to a very unusual bottle opener.

She also enjoyed doing the workshop, because the Victorian period is one of her favourite periods in British history and she definitely loves cooking! I can testify to this as the great quantity of cupcakes frequently baked for the Hosts team made their way to the staff room straight from her kitchen oven!

Joanna’s workshop is called “The Glassmaker Apprentice” and focuses on families with children aged 3+. Her workshop is based on the long and fascinating history of stained glass work pieces, with a particular focus on windows.

She told me that the very first examples are from ancient Egypt, later Greece and Rome, but its most height of fashion was during the dark medieval times.
Nowadays this fashion is coming back usually in smaller forms like elements in doors or art works in public buildings, galleries, churches and very tiny forms like window decorations and sun catchers.
On the workshop day Joanna and the families work at making sun catchers.

There are several shapes to choose from and they use brightly foils to imitate glass. To begin with, children and parents are encouraged to draw a flower or other designs on a black cardboard and then they cut off all the holes. For younger children Johanna offers already made models. The following and easy step is to glue various pieces of coloured foils to the back side of the sun catcher and finally attach a string so to be hung in a window. Have a look, I love the dove one!

You can join Johanna’s  next  workshop on Sunday 13 November.  I hope to see you there!

Hello, Giusy here again from the Museum’s Visitor Services Team, with more on the workshops you can enjoy developed and run by your hosts (hope you enjoyed my last update on my own Roman mosiac workshops which you can read here).

My colleague Ed has a true mania for mail making. He has always been fascinated and he has been doing it for nearly five years now. If you walk to the galleries you will never find him without a small piece in his hands. I am not joking.

He wrote a dissertation on the topic and discovered that despite the fact mail was used for nearly two thousand years, very little work has been done on it. As an archaeologist it is his belief that the best way to understand an ancient technology is to have a go at making or using it. So now he runs the workshop at the Museum of London demonstrating to the public how mail was made and sharing the secrets that are locked within it.

He told me that in the past weapons and armour were not viewed the way they are now, they were integral to society, they had magical powers, names and were status symbols.
Mail armour was one of the most expensive armours around; it is very labour intensive, taking him around 7 months to make a complete shirt alone. It involves linking each ring through four others, and if made properly, riveting them shut to prevent them opening. In a complete mail shirt there can be as many as 28,000 rings, each one formed and riveted by hand.

His research into mail and its manufacture has brought to light a number of interesting new facts: such as how was mail made to fit the wearer? What sort of quality is the metal that mail is made from? What do these facts then tell us about the people making and wearing mail? When Ed does his workshop the public gets the chance to see and touch complete mail garments as well as have a go at riveting a ring or two.

The hope is that through this the public gain some new understanding of this interesting aspect of history, plus its fun! As the workshops progress visitors will see how the rings they have riveted become part of the weave of a new mail coif, a form of head protection that will be put in one of our gallery prop boxes for future visitors to try on.

Be sure to visit our Medieval Gallery to find out more.

Why not Join Ed for his next workshop this Sunday (7 August)!

Hi guys Giusy here, back again with our first update of the month from the museums Visitor Services Team.

Here at the Museum of London we love to get inspired by our collections. I hear that very exciting projects are on their way but let me show you what some of us have been working on so far.
We all have a passion for London but for some of the Hosts this enthusiasm becomes a real obsession and so we have been running a different series of workshops for families and children at the museum.

My personal inspiration comes straight from my favourite exhibition in the Museum: the Roman Gallery. With a focus on perhaps one the most famous art activities during Roman times, I decided to work on a mosaic, but a real one, to be made with real stone tesserae and based on authentic Roman design!
The model that I chose for my common project is a twisted rope design technically called Guilloche. I thought it was exceptionally representative of the Roman culture as it was often used in borders to enclose popular patterns and also because we have a wonderful one in our Roman gallery.

What a better example with which to get inspiration from for the kids!
I created the Guilloche freehand but it took me a bit of organisation and time.
I sketched six big circles in an A3 sheet and I drew six smaller circles inside. To make the large circles on the sheets I used a pen held in a loop in a thread and I pinned the string at the centre of the circle to obtain radius of not more than 3cm. At this point I simply drew lines for the rows of the stone tesserae.
Roman craftsmen would opt for different combination of colours according to the uses they were designated for. I wanted to create something that looked quite similar to our Bucklersbury mosaic.

The mosaic I am working on with the kids has six lines and presents an alternation of 3 colours. Normally guilloche frames would have had three lines of tesserae only. These might have been one line of one colour and the remaining two of a different colour but they could also have a combination of three colours for each row.
Here you can see what we have achieved so far…

It is a very time consuming work and your patience will pay dividend.

Our Roman Gallery is planned to be completely refurbished after the 2012 Olympics Games.
I can’t wait to give a tour in the new exhibition and perhaps develop another workshop!

If you have been following our blog updates throughout the development of our YOUR 2012 display, you will know that a number of visitor hosts from the Museum of London Docklands have been visiting the Olympic site at Stratford, East London since February 2010 capturing in photographs the construction work and its impact on the landscape and community.

From Friday, 20 of these images will form a free display at the museum.

In planning the display the hosts soon realised that they would not be able to feature all of their images and indeed ongoing work at the site after the selection process for display had been completed could not be included.

With this in mind, it was decided that the museum’s online resources such as its blog pages and social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter would be a great platform to share additional images and ensure that the ongoing story of the site could be featured in a virtual extension of the YOUR 2012 project.

Here, one of the display curators and visitor hosts, Dave Matthews, shares three images and insight from a visit to the area over the weekend:

Anish Kapoor’s Orbit Tower is getting larger by the minute. Every day it seems to take on a new twist!

Even at this early stage, it appears to be towering over the main stadium. When the project is completed, the tower will offer a viewing platform 115 metres (337ft) high.

As Newham’s regeneration projects gather pace, you can’t help noticing all the new planters and baskets full of striking flowers – quite a contrast to all the building work still going on in and around Stratford. No matter which corner you turn, there is evidence of change, and with the addition of the flowers, Stratford feels vibrant and colourful.

The Time Spiral, as it is officially known, can be found outside Maryland Station. This winding structure contemplates themes of time and space and will eventually be lit up. This twisted steel clock, created by artist Malcolm Robertson, originally stood outside Stratford Station. It was relocated to Maryland Station to make way for the new pedestrian bridge that links to the Olympic Park.

Be sure to check back regularly for more updates from the project.

Hello everyone! My name is Giusy and I’m a host at the Museum of London, London Wall.

Many of you may know me and the other hosts personally but if you come to the Museum for the first time you certainly cannot miss us. We are those friendly and caring people in bright pink shirts who run up and down doing tours, workshops, and assist visitors throughout their stay.

It is the first time that I have written a blog ever and I am very excited at the idea of telling you about us on an open and informal platform. There’s no better means than a blog to get to know us a bit better, unless you come and pay a visit to our museum.

I’ll start by telling you about the Museum of London Docklands latest exhibition Pirates: The Captain Kidd Story and the fun had by both staff and public who attended our special pirate themed late event on the 27 May.

The hosts who went along got very excited at the opportunity of dressing up as pirates and exploring Captain Kidd’s fascinating story.

I unfortunately was unable to join them, but looking at the pictures I am filled with envy! In addition to the fun from dressing up they were also joined by our curators, Tom Wareham and Hilary Davidson, for a free tour about Captain Kidd which were very instructive!

Nick enlightened me with some very interesting facts he picked up at the event, such as intriguing aspects about Captain Kidd’s life, as well as something that I actually had not known before…

Did you know that textiles have in fact a very distinguished heritage when it comes to pirates? It is common for gold and jewellery to be associated with pirates, but it is fabrics that tell us more! According to our curator of fashion and decorative arts Hilary, it seems that between the 16th and 17th centuries Indian patterns featured prominently in pirates’ fashion – particularly on bandanas.

It had the advantage of being easy to wash and at a certain point it became a very fashionable and valuable type of cotton textile to be exported to many parts of the British Empire. I think these types of garments possessed a sort of exotic charm in those days…

 Later in the evening, to the groups great suprise, they realised that one of the team was wearing an exact copy of one the Museum puppets outfits…without a beard.

Later on, Elizabeth discovered that the blue and white bandana she was wearing as part of her pirate outfit was a paisley pattern -just what Captain Kidd would probably have worn. And she had bought two for a bargain price of only £1.50!

Hilary used Elizabeth’s bandana as an example to show the audience the authentic way of folding it. I am sure she must have looked like a proper woman pirate.

Did you know that a significant minority of historical pirates were female? Anne Bonney, Charlotte de Berry, Jane de Belville were among the most famous ones in history.

Pirates would occasionally capture parrots or monkeys due to the price they fetched on the market once they returned home. In those days tropical animals were a real ‘must have’ accessory and would be considered more unique than they are today.

Pirates are not believed to have actually kept them as pets, but I love to savour the image of a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder just like Long John Silver was portrayed in Treasure Island, a fact that clearly inspired Anna…

Our late events are proving to be very popular (I hope you can see why from the pictures and stories I shared above). I understand that our next late event at the Museum of London will have a 50s theme and will take place on 11 August (check out our website from 04 July for booking details).