Winter Museums

It's a bit of a while since my last post, and though I am no longer publishing for the sake of doing so these days I do still have a minor mission to sing the praises of the local museum and over my New Year break managed to find a couple new to me. I must have been to the Salisbury and South Wilts Museum many years ago, but if so remember little about it. It's now based, of all places, in what was until 1994 the Sarum Theological College, a rambling hodge-podge of a building of many periods which doesn't feature much in the displays themselves. There are a couple of rooms of art, a natural history gallery, one of Medieval Salisbury and another which covers the later town and includes the towering figure of Giant Christopher whose modern counterpart is still taken on procession through the streets at Midsummer; but the most evocative area of the Museum is the relatively new archaeology display, the Wessex Gallery. This dates from 2015, but although it's sparkly and modern it has a delightfully retro feel to it, even down to the typeface used which could have been designed in the 1950s. The only thing it lacks, thankfully, is hessian fabric backing to the display cases.

A couple of days later I found myself in Brighton visiting one of the most lacklustre holy well reconstructions in the country (St Anne's Well at Hove), and while ambling along the seafront discovered the Fishing Museum. This is a great contrast to the mighty Brighton Museum & Art Gallery (is it really six years since I was there?) and consists of two small rooms crammed under the promenade. The best use is made of this space with a small walkway taking the visitor round on a higher level around a small boat, fibreglass seagulls, nets, and pictures of 18th-century crab-sellers and Edwardian swimming clubs. It's free to go in, but a card reader waits hopefully for visitor donations. I much enjoyed it!