Inside the Museum of London

Malika Booker, image copyright Naomi Woodis

This is Malika Booker. Amongst many other things, she is a London-based writer and spoken word artist. She is also Poet in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. You can find out more about her here. I’ve admired Malika’s work for a while now so I was thrilled when she agreed to lead a workshop in the Continue Creating programme. She chose the subject of sugar, inspired by the London, Sugar and Slavery gallery and worked with us to each create a piece of writing about sugar. The finished articles are at the bottom of this post.

A good old bag of Taste and Smile

For most people, writing creatively is a little bit scary. We think we won’t be very good at it. We think we’ll expose ourselves. We think others will be better. When we did it at school it wasn’t very good and we haven’t done it since, thank you very much. Although she didn’t tell us, I have a sneaky feeling that Malika knew all of this, so she started us off we three exercises to ease us in. Firstly, we all introduced ourselves and told a little anecdote about our relationship to sugar, accompanied by an action. Stavroulla told us that she took sugar in her coffee, so did an action of someone stirring a cup. A cup, never a mug.

The freewrite rules, being demonstrated by our glamorous assistant Halima

Then we did a freewrite, which is a bit like a stream of consciousness. You have 2 minutes and you just have to write. And keep writing. Anything. Anything at all. Not necessarily clever, or poetic, or even coherent. But you have to write. And you must not worry about things like spelling and punctuation. After two minutes furious writing, we came back together to think about the many ways sugar plays a part in our lives.

Our mind map of sugar

Then, to help the flow of ideas, we had 10 minutes to go a bit mad, making collage with sugar products. We were NOT supposed to eat the sweets…

Brigette making her sweet collage

Once we were all thoroughly sugared up, we went up to the gallery.

The sugar cane panel in London, Sugar and Slavery

Malika asked us to explore the gallery, making notes of things that struck us, before returning downstairs to get more ideas flowing.

Panel in the gallery that lists the number of enslaved Africans on ships

Downstairs, we paired up to tell each other a personal story involving sugar. Richard told Gilly about the time he’d had 8 teeth removed in one go because of his sugar addiction… partially brought on by eating Frosties with tango! Gilly told Richard how she thought unnatural sugar was poisonous. Halima told me a lovely story about her dad, who would cut an apple into four equal parts every night before bed and give each child a piece to demonstrate that everyone was loved equally. This lovely ritual continued right into Halima’s teenage years. Brigitte told Stavroulla about making the annual Christmas cake, where every member of the family had to take it in turns to stir the mix and then prick the cake with sherry and Stav told Brigitte about eating hot apple fritters on market mornings as a child.

London, Sugar and Slavery comment card

The last thing we did was listen to Malika read some beautiful poems by other writers about sugar, taken from the Poetry foundation. One of the poems she read was Sugar Cane, by Alfred Corn. Please take a couple of minutes to read it, it’s not only beautifully written but also unlocks the themes of the gallery in a very relevant way. As Malika read, we sucked on fresh sugar cane, bought from a market in Brixton that morning and chopped into chunks for us by a very nice man.

Fresh sugar cane pre and post chopping

And then we wrote. We had 10 minutes, we had the tools that we had  learnt earlier in the afternoon and we had inspiration. The pieces are below. I wanted you to see them in their authors’ own hands (those who were happy for them to go on the blog) so I have pasted the pictures and typed the words below them. They are all great pieces and well worth a read. Why don’t you have a go at writing one? Grab something sweet, chat to some friends, have bit of a freewrite and see where it takes you.

Richard's story of the banana and chocolate pizza

I recall, as I am sat ensconced in biscuit crumbs around my table. A trip far away beyond the fields of Sevenoaks – where no light pollution prevails and no signal found for my mobile. A remote residential setting for my singing group: streetwise opera a couple of days or more away from society surrounded by folk songs and organic food! What a punishment, not even brown sugar can lift my spirits amongst the withdrawal of my junk food diet. But brief salvation in the form of a pizza making master class. A chance to create a savoury and “SWEET” one. Banana and chocolate is layered all over my pizza, a whole slab of a bar is used – so thick; the chunks don’t even melt fully. At last a chance to drown in my own sweet gorgeous gluttony! (Hand made!!!)

Halima's music teacher who saw melodies as chocolate bars

I remember my primary school music teacher, Mr. Mills, who described different sections in a musical melody as a bar of chocolate. He said, ‘think of it as a giant bar, which is easy to separate, as opposed to a great big slab of chocolate.’ I remember the class understanding straight away. It was a metaphor we can all relate to. We definitely performed better in that class, hitting the highs, the lows and the in-betweens.

Brigitte's ballad to the unknown numbers

It was 1788 but no English ship’s captain knew how many African human cargo it carried across the Great water to England

But to the islands still being fought over by French & Dutch and & English monarchies

It was 1789 but no record of the number of the ship’s human cargo from Africa, which sailed from Africa to the islands

It was 1790 and still the numbers remained unknown – the destination, mainly Jamaica

It was 1791, more rules, fewer rules but now a ship has memory and as it sets sail to Jamaica with 283 or were these 1000 and 283?

It was 1791 and as islands are captured not just Jamaica but other islands come into focus 131 but at once 394 (or maybe 2394) and in St. Vincent

Even St Eustatius with 216 or was that 21,600 received – the makings of the labour to create a sugar loaf, nipped at the head or hot chocolate

My synopsis of the afternoon

I can tell you about poisons

And teeth

And sherry

I can tell you about conversazione

and riflessione.

Of Trinidad

And stabbing at a swamp

Of shards and nippers

And equally divided apples.

I can tell you about figs and dates

Natural

Fresh or dried

I can tell you’ve had your hair tied

I can tell you about Frosties and tango

And the sweetness of Pineapple

Rum and

Mango.

I can tell you about whips

About sweets that are not for eating

And of the people who eat them anyway

I can tell you of seven souls, in one

room, on one day, sharing their sweetness.

And finally... Malika's masterpiece

There is a sweet agony in claiming you

blocks of white crystal, grown of brown

like God’s soil. There is a sweetness

about you that shape pure china. So

fragile, (so white), so delicate to be

sipped, little finger extended & what

about when auntie caught you, ‘a

little bit of sugar,’ they said. I searched

her skin every morning to see if her brown

skin became grains of you, not seeing

the price of you, how you break the organs

in the body like china, ceramic crashing

on to the wooden floor, you shatter the kidney

& bloat stomachs, you paint big toes

a purple splash of gangrene.

Did we not  heed how your parents ‘cane’ danced

green to the breezes wind, a field of

swaying care free bodies, but their

leaves would leave vicious cuts on

tender skin

How you cut us so deep sugar

darling yet we crave your

syrup taste like innocents walking

into a knife’s blade.

How many of us really know what goes on in the gleaming tower blocks and chaotic trading floors of the City?

By Lucie Parkes, Museum of London Secondary School Programme Manager.

Bishopshalt School were the first to take part in the Survive the City study day. One pupil remarked: “visiting the bank was the highlight of my trip, it was an amazing experience.”

Study days of this kind are new territory for the Museum. Usually the wonders of our Museum are experienced only for arts and humanities subjects, so it’s exciting to bring in an entirely new audience.

Being positioned at the heart of the City, it has always been relevant for the Museum to connect meaningfully to its immediate surroundings. Furthermore, the creation of Survive the City has added to the richness and diversity that our schools programmes offer.

The world of finance can often seem like a removed and mysterious planet set apart from the rest of us. However, the crises of recent years have highlighted just how much it can affect our everyday lives – and therefore, the need to know about it and understand it. For this reason, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to provide an impartial link between this world and young people in London. Knowledge is power as they say! And our aim is to do what we can to support and empower young people to have the confidence to make successes of their lives and contribute positively to our City.

From Gary's archive

This month we looked at London’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) history. This was initiated by Gary, who has been collaborating with the museum for several years now and is a key face of the inclusion programme. Gary is interested in how visible LGBT history is in the museum’s permanent galleries and set us the challenge of finding as many LGBT objects on show as possible. What did we find? What can you find? And who was princess Serafina? All answers revealed below…

Anti-nazi badge

A search of the Museum’s Collections Online lists 18 objects linked to LGBT London. Of these 4 are printed ephemera, 1 is an outfit and 13 are badges. All of these are from the twentieth century and they are all on display in the World City gallery. For more info about the badges you can search our Collections Online and for the outfit below, please click here: http://bit.ly/SvwXll

Designed by Gibb and Fassett

So these are the objects that the website gives us but Gary was interested in whether our eyes would yield any other results. So we went looking… The first item someone found was this fine fellow:

Hadrian - Killer Queen

This is a copper alloy dupondius coin of Emperor Hadrian, ruler of the Roman Empire, AD 117-138. Although it was not uncommon for his predecessors to have gay lovers (alongside their wives), Hadrian was the first Roman emperor to be publicly ‘out’. This depiction of Hadrian sparked lots of discussion about homosexuality in ancient Roman and Greek culture, particularly with regards to the military. Gary told us that both empires encouraged homosexuality in their armies. They saw that soldiers fighting to defend someone they were in love with would fight twice as hard as those defending their friends and colleagues. After chatting about this, we continued our search. In the Expanding City gallery, someone pointed out the classical images on the Selfridges lift, some of which could be seen as homo-erotic.

Selfridges lift from 1928

Sadly, despite a continued search we didn’t find many more objects in the galleries that we saw as being linked to LGBT history and culture. I’d love to hear from you though, if you have spotted objects that we missed. Maybe this lack of obvious objects is something for us at the museum to think about. We do have lots of other items in storage, which may one day make it to the galleries. These can currently be viewed using Collections Online and include, among many other things, the below booklet.

Booklet from 1980

Gary, however, has an impressive personal archive of LGBT objects, images and quotes, which we had the great pleasure of rifling through. Please see some of these below and at the bottom of this blog post. After exploring the galleries, Gary led us in making jumping jack style puppets in celebration of all open-minded Londoners past and present. We took these on a gay pride march around the Newgate Prison Door and Well close prison cell – much to the entertainment of the on looking visitors! Here are some of them:

What do you mean? I always dress like this

Pretty in pink

Yes, my legs are longer than the others'

Get over it

So all that’s left now is to explain about Princess Serafina. She was London’s first recorded drag artist, working in London in the mid-18th century. Since her death she has continued to make appearances around London and yesterday she was with us all day, as Gary led the workshop in character, and costume! This definitely encouraged us all to have a laugh. But he stayed true to character by not just having fun but having a serious message too, one informed by lots of reading and lots of brain. Thank you so much for such a memorable workshop Gary.

Here’s to the promotion of love, for everyone, everywhere.

Previous LGBT exhibitions at Museum of London

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Explore-online/Past/OutInTime.htm

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Explore-online/Past/QueerIsHere.htm

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Explore-online/Past/Outside_Edge.htm

Quotes and Images

‘Be yourself, everyone else is taken.’ Oscar Wilde

‘Surely there can’t be any such thing!’ Queen Victoria, on Lesbianism

‘The whole trouble with western society today is the lack of anything worth concealing.’ Joe Orton

‘I cannot regard my sexual feelings as unnatural or abnormal, since they have disclosed themselves so perfectly and natural and spontaneously with me.’ Edward Carpenter,  1897

From Gary's archive

From Gary's archive

From Gary's archive

Little Syon in 1820

This week Continue Creating broke from the routine of doing a workshop at Museum of London and took part in the archaelogical dig to find Little Syon. ‘Little Syon’ sat in the grounds of Syon Park, Brentford. The house was built in c. 1592 by George Watson. The house changed hands a number of times and was eventually bought in 1818 by Hugh Percy, 3^rd Duke of Northumberland, and incorporated into Syon Park. It was demolished as part of the landscape renovations commissioned by the Duke but archive records suggest it was still standing in 1820, suggesting a demolition date in the early 1820’s. The excavation is the first time the site’s archaeological will be explored.

Starting to wash the finds

The session started with a very interesting talk from Kath, about the history of the site and what the archaelogists were hoping to find. We learnt about Syon during the Roman period, through the Battle (or skirmish) of Brentford in 1642, right up to the C19th. Then we were taught how to dig. Over the course of 30 minutes, 8 willing volunteers scraped carefully away at the earth in the hope that it might yield some of its secrets.

Stav and Andrew giving it a good scrub

A key part of the archaelogical process is ‘Finds washing’, literally washing what you have found. So with a bowl of clean water, a toothbrush and a gentle hand, the group set to work.

Trying to ignore the wild parakeets flying overhead

The age old dilemma: brick or roof tile?

 Once celan, we could really see what we had found.

In this tray you can see a number of things. There is an oyster shell, which Dan explained was, unlike today, the fast food of Roman times. Then, it was plentiful, cheap and delivered in throw away packaging (the shell!) You can also see pieces of glassware. Kate told us that the clear galss may have formed a vessel that carried ointment/beauty product and the green a wine bottle. The green glass had a sprawling iridescent stain on it, which may not be visible in the photograph, but was caused by soil staining over the years. There are also pieces of brick and roof tile and you can tell where someone had been guilty of shoddy workmanship. A grey seem running through the centre of the piece shows that it was not fired enough. The clay remained grey rather than turning red.

Victorian crockery

Two finds attracted particular attention. The first was this piece of Victorian crockery, probably a serving plate used for day to day eating, rather than special events.

Poppy ware

The second, what Kate referred to as the ’star find’, was this piece of ‘Poppy ware’, so called because of the black dots across it, which look like Poppy seeds. It is Roman, making it over 2,000 years old, and was almost certainly made in Highgate, North London, where the Romans produced a lot of Poppy ware. The Poppy seed pattern is not only decorative but as the circles are slightly raised, helps the user to grip it. This piece was probably part of a bowl.

After the visit, on the mini-bus on back to London Wall , everyone agreed that they had had a great afternoon. A massive thank you to the whole team who made it possible. Andrew did point out though that someone needs to be more careful with their pots because they are all broken!

Vauxhall, 1785 by Thomas Rowlandson

Pleasure gardens competed for visitors, vying with each other to offer evermore exciting entertainments. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens offered a wide variety of entertainment, including lion-tamers, trampoline clowns, fortune tellers, ventriloquists, monkeys, dogs, jugglers, horses who danced to a waltz and fire walkers.

Tournaire's Equestrians, Vauxhall Gardens, 1846

Costumes from the Museum of London’s pleasure gardens

The Museum of London’s pleasure gardens

Starting to look at art

During this week’s Many East End session, we asked members of youth organisation Tolerance in Diversity what they thought was the most significant event in the East End in the last two years. I’ll reveal their answer in a bit, but first a little about the session. (As we were starting to examine, and create, art this week, you’ll see the photos have taken on a post-modern feel).

Selecting photos

Artist Sarah Carne started off by asking everyone about the photos they had taken in the galleries last week to represent their favourite East End place, person, image and thing. Collectively, the group discussed each photo and sorted them into three categories: Definitely representative, Definitely not representative and Not sure. Strong strands started to emerge amongst the images, the strongest of which was family. Others included Canary Wharf, The Thames, water more generally and modern architecture. One participant had chosen ‘Turkoman’ to represent her favourite East End person, her brother. She said Turkoman reminded her of him when he was little dressing up in girls clothes and in her words, ‘being a girl’.

Turkoman

The ‘Definitely representative ‘ and ‘Not Sure’ photos were then gathered and saved, and participants will be adding them to their project portfolios.

Sarah then introduced us to her art.

Sarah Carne - Loving her Yugo

Sarah explained that she  does a lot of work in film and photography and that, in her words, ‘My art is all about me’. As well as showing us interesting commissions she has done on a variety of topics she also introduced us to what it would appear is the love of her life – her Yugo. The amazing Yugo has been photographed, written upon, Letrasetted (if that’s a word), converted into a cinema, use to ferry people between exhibitions, travelled ‘home’ to Yugoslavia, rotted, molded, broken down and vandalised. And now Sarah is  writing a musical about it. The Yugo is Sarah’s. As art, it represents her and reflects her. The Yugo also provided the subject matter for a series of photos, which when shown in quick succession, convert into a mini film. The combination of self, and the creation of film, was our inspiration for our next task.

Personalising a peg

Sarah gave everyone a peg and asked them to customise it to represent them. One person simply added their name using Letraset, followed by a semi-colon to represent the fact that he does a lot of computer programming. (The semi-colon occurs alot in computer programming, we were told!) Other pegs were converted into a girl with little pigtails and a shark. Others were covered in letters and stickers and one was not touched in itself, but attached to a Bangladeshi flag, to represent nationality.

Loving the peg

So, you may be wondering how all this relates to most significant event in the East End in the last two years. Well…

Sarah explained that the customised pegs, and other pegs if necessary were going to be ’brought to life’ in a quick film to represent that event, whatever the group thought it may be. So, a discussion began on possible contenders for this event. Suggestions included:

1. Construction of the Olympics site
2. Losing the bid to host the World Cup
3. English Defensive League march this summer
4. Construction of Westfield
5. Riots in Hackney

After some to-ing and fro-ing the group came to a consensus that, in their opinion, the most significant event in terms of impact on their East End was the English Defensive League march. Several of the group members had been there on the day, having joined lots of people in coming out against the march. In the midst of the tension, the EDL coach broke down, just outside the East London Mosque, and a previously unpredicted flash point erupted.  You can read more about the event here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14779772

So, using pegs, and a healthy slug of creativity, the group created a short film of the events of the day. We do have the film footage but haven’t had a chance to do anything post production yet so a photo will have to do!

Us and Them - In Pegs

And that concluded last night’s session. I’m sure we will be going back to this topic, and looking in further depth at why the group felt that this is the most significant East End event in the last two years. Because of the public sector strike we are not meeting next week, so the group are meeting independently. Leading on from examining what their East End is, they are going to be considering how they would represent it artistically. Their ‘pitch’ is going to be presented to the curator of View Tube in Stratford on 7th December. Watch this space…

Team bonding

Down at Docklands, we are working on a new concept for the part of the museum that looks at the Docks since 1945. The working title of this project is Many East Ends.

In order to tell as rich a history as possible in the new gallery, Docklands Strategy Manager, George Young, is doing lots of creative colloborations with all types of groups and individuals. One of these groups is Tolerance in Diversity, an organisation based in Limehouse led by young people for young people. TiD work to reduce discrimination and prejudice by delivering training and running events throughout London. They have worked with the museum before and we have invited them back for their input into the concept for Many East Ends.

Why the long face?

The process started last night, under the guidance of artist Sarah Carne. www.sarahcarne.org

Sarah asked everyone to think of  their favourite East End person, place, image and thing.  Everyone was given a video camera and asked to give their four examples to camera. This has delivered some very interesting footage that we hope to put online in the future, together with other footage as the project progresses.

After filming, and armed with a camera, everyone was asked to find examples of items in the gallery that connected to, or represented, their four examples. Here is a snap shot of some of them.

Canary Wharf model

Bridge for DLR

East End family

Bomb by William Ware

We then started talking and thinking about what everyone wanted to get out of the project.

Thinking of ideas

Sarah asked everyone to answer the following questions:

What skills to I bring to the project?
What do I want to get from the project?
What could stand in my way?
What skills do you need in the East End?

Hard at work

Lastly, Sarah led discussion on what elements of the East End would need to be included in the gallery when it was redeveloped, based on the thoughts from the evening’s activity. On initial discussion, the following ideas and elements were put forward.

• Politics
• Immigration
• Buskers
• A working DLR train
• A mock tube station – not Bermondsey
• Gangs
• The River Thames

Developing, expanding and honing this list will form a key element of this project as it continues towards Christmas and into the New Year. Next week we will be returning to it to see what ideas have changed or grown. We will also be looking at how far back in time the Many East Ends gallery should go, as well as having more fun with cameras, creating more bunting (as seen in the background of the photos) and adding more to our project portfolio books.

Our Primary Schools Programme Manager Nina Sprigge, reveals more about the build up to Kids Takeover Day 2011 at the Museum of London.

Roman Strigil

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it an instrument of torture? No, it’s a Roman strigil. And what is a strigil you may well ask. Well…

Instead of using water to clean themselves, Romans used olive oil. They would pour it onto their body and let it it sit there for a few minutes. The oil would make its way into the pores of the skin, picking up any dead cells, dust and dirt. Then, the cleansing Roman would take a strigil (like the one pictured above) and scrape the grimey oil off his or her body, leaving them looking good and feeling smooth. In Roman society it was considered rude to bathe any less than once a week and cleanliness and beauty were prized much as they are today.

Things have not been the same through the ages though. Around the tudor period, bathing went out of fashion, maybe because for lots of people, it was harder to bathe. Clothing also changed, with a fashion for a layer of under garments beneath your outer clothes. People washed their under garments more regularly than themselves and society became less concerned about regular bathing. During tudor times, people would carry pomanders, believing them to bring health. Common belief was that disease lived in bad smells and that nice smells would dispell illness.

All of this fascinating information was imparted to the October participants of Continue Creating by expert Sally Pointer. After speaking of more distant times, she then brought us more up to date. We looked at bars of soap from the collection, including the unforgettably smelling carbolic.

Soap made for Children's Home residents, Hounslow

We discussed soap’s multiple functions from something with which to scour a chip pan or clean a tin bath, to a myriad of beauty products. And it was beauty soap that we were interested in, as this was the type that Sally was going to show us how to make. Very exciting! We discussed the different base fats that are used to make soap, including olive, vegetable and animal fats. One of the workshop participants told us about her mother in Africa, who makes soap using palm oil and coconut oil. Sally also showed us the various flowers and other ingredients that you can add to the fat to make it both look and smell nice. She had lavender, marigold, rose as well as oats and an array of oils including sandalwood and geranium.

Putting the work in - grating soap

Firstly, we grated existing unperfurmed castile soap made by Sally. Grating soap is hard work. We discovered that it is much tougher than cheese! But everyone got stuck in and put in a lot of elbow grease.

Hands at work

To combine the grated soap, flowers and other smells, Sally recommends subtley scented boiled water like orange blossom or rose water. We used rose water. The variety of ingredients meant that participants made a lot of different combinations: oatmeal and lavender, all rose, marigold and sandalwood, oatmeal and geranium… and the list goes on. There were a real range of shapes too with some people creating balls and others fashioning them into stars and even a monkey!

Ta Da! Homemade soap

Who wouldn't be proud?

We all had a thoroughly fascinating and fun afternoon and would like to thank Sally for such a great workshop. What beauty products could we make next? Answers on a postcard please.

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