History needs to be interpreted and that, of course, is what museums do! Both Newcastle Black Gate and Hexham Old Gaol describe their displays as ‘museums’, but they’re the kind of museums that have more mannequins than objects. In complete contrast is the mighty Tullie House in Carlisle. When I was doing Museum Studies at Leicester in 1991, Tullie House was the model we were all supposed to look to. It had just had a massive extension and redevelopment to give it displays worthy of the 21st century: but it was also charging what seemed then to be an eye-watering admission fee to try to recoup some of the cost. If my party had consisted of more than me, my eyes might have watered a bit on my visit too, but if you’re local you can get a discount, and no one can deny that it’s very good. Even a temporary exhibition about ‘Hair’ which didn’t inspire me very much turned out to be interesting (and included a photo of Goth model and DJ Parma Ham with their unfeasible mohican).
My biggest museological delight came very unexpectedly, in my visit to
Chesters Roman Fort. James Clayton, who inherited Chesters in 1832, spent fifty
years excavating the remains, and by his death in 1890 owned twenty miles of
Hadrian’s Wall and five of its forts. The Clayton Collection Museum was opened
in 1895 to display the portable results. There is some modern interpretation,
but what makes the Museum so exciting is that so much of it remains a Victorian
wunderkammer: lines of altars and broken statues, shelves of millstones, dark
wood cabinets and red-painted walls. For this to work you have to have powerful
objects in the first place, but here you have.
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