Tower Hamlets museums and galleries
With the long weeks of the summer holidays stretching ahead of us, there are great opportunities at Tower Hamlets’ museums for parents and kids to explore our history together. Whether it’s the cultural or commercial past of the East End, recent or ancient history, the sheer choice of museums and galleries show just how rich and diverse a mix our past is.
The Museum in Docklands is a great place to start, covering the whole of our 2000 year history. Galleries show how the region has been the heart of centuries of social and economic change (not least in the dynamism that is Docklands today) and pay homage to the people who helped re-build and shape it. The space is within a warehouse built in 1803 for the storage of rum, molasses and sugar. There is a marvellous range of special events, exhibitions and workshops on over the summer, including ‘India Now’, ‘Foreshore Finds’ (a great chance to dig up your own bits of history), the ‘Docklands Old and New’ family walk and ‘Slavery Rememberance Day’. The museum is at West India Quay.
If you want to find more about old London, then the Museum of London, is just out of the borough, in London Wall. It’s the world’s largest urban history museum, but now to one of the smallest. Denis Severs’ House, at 18 Folgate Street, Spitalfields takes the micro approach … a living tableau of how one family might have lived in Georgian east London. Unique and absolutely fascinating. Another intriguing mini-museum is the SS Robin, moored at West India Quay. The world’s oldest complete steamship, the Robin has had its cargo hold converted into an interactive learning space and photojournalism gallery, with seminars, workshops, exhibitions and events planned for schools, the public and professionals. Staying afloat, check out the Prenelle Floating Art Gallery, on a beautiful 130ft Dutch barge at West India Dock.
One of the borough’s most fascinating attractions is the Ragged School Museum, in Bow’s Copperfield Road. It houses photographs, documents and many other artifacts connected with the lives of the children who attended Dr Barnado’s free ragged day schools in the late 1800s. You can experience a Victorian school lesson in a recreated classroom and discover how Victorian children were taught. There are also fascinating displays recreating past life in the East End.
Three Mills at Bow lets you see one of the old industries of the East End in action. This is a magnificent restored mill complex on the east bank of the River Lea - and a trading site for nearly 1000 years, Three Mills itself was built in 1776 and was the country’s largest tidal mill complex and an important industrial centre. It has been restored as a working museum and contains much of its original machinery including four large waterwheels, millstones and grain chutes.
Another industrial relic pressed into exciting new use is Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, at Wapping Wall now reborn as the Wapping Project. It’s another brilliant example of how the old and new can live and work together. The power station, was built in 1890 and run by the London Hydraulic Power Company, producing energy for London. The Tower Subway was used to transfer power and steam south of the river. Exhibitions are held in the basement and, an added bonus, some of the original equipment is still in place.
One superannuated concern still trading though is the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. The Guinness Book of Records lists the Foundry as Britain’s oldest manufacturing company, having been established in 1570 (during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I) and being in continuous business since that date. The owners claim it’s actually a bit older than that, as the business was making bells some 72 years before Columbus set off to (accidentally) discover America. This is a tremendous insight into the company that created the Liberty Bell, the bells for Westminster Abbey and of course, Big Ben itself, weighing 13.5 tons. Note that this is a working foundry, so visiting times are strictly limited … a day no visitor will forget though.
You can find a full list of these galleries and museums in Tower Hamlets, their contact details and directions on how to reach them at http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/discover/data/museums/index.cfm. You’ll also find links from here to all the websites of the individual museums. And if you don’t have the internet at home, just pop into one of the Ideas Stores, where you’ll be able to go online for more. Next week, we’ll be completing our roundup of how you can spend your summer discovering the history and culture of the East End, as we look at the borough’s museums and galleries.
Looking for something to do with the long summer holidays? Last week we began our tour of the numerous museums and galleries around Tower Hamlets, with permanent exhibitions and special drop-in events over the coming weeks. Today we conclude our look at great opportunities for adults and children to discover our rich history.
A fascinating day out can be had at the Royal London Hospital Archives and Museum. The Royal London, once Britain’s largest general hospital, was founded in 1740 by seven philanthropists, led by 22 year old surgeon, John Harrison. It’s been at its present site at Whitechapel since 1757 and has been a teaching hospital since 1785. This unusually long history give us the chance to see how medicine was practised a century or two back … you may leave wondering how anyone survived.
Another glimpse into the past life of the emergency services can be had at the Thames Police Museum, at Wapping Police Station, Wapping High Street. Here you can view uniforms, equipment and other memorabilia from the Marine Police Establishment and Metropolitan Police Thames Division, formed in 1798 to combat pilfering from sailors. Admission is free but visits are by written appointment only.
Of course not all our museums deal with history of the East End as such. A perennial favourite, back renovated, bigger and better than ever is the Museum of Childhood, our own branch of the V&A in Bethnal Green Road. This museum houses one of the largest and most fascinating collections of children’s toys in the country. The ground floor is full of delightful playthings, ranging from dolls’ houses, games and teddy bears, to toy soldiers and trains, dating from the 17th century to the present day. There is also a programme of exhibitions and events over the summer, including the fascinating Dreams of Flying with photos by Jan von Holleben. Crossing the desert on the back of a dog, or searching for lost treasures on the bottom of the ocean … you won’t have seen anything quite like these pictures which take their inspiration from children’s dreams. Check the museum’s website for a full list of workshops and drop-in activities.
The Women’s Library, in Old Castle Street, E1 is a cultural centre, housing the most extensive collection of women’s history in the UK. As well as the Reading Room there is a lively exhibition and events programme, and the Wash Houses Café. The Women’s Suffrage movement of course, but a whole lot more, including how women’s role and power in society has evolved.
There are lots of popular galleries in the East End too of course. Some are long established, like the Whitechapel Art Gallery, founded in 1901 and itself historically interesting. The Whitechapel was one of London’s first publicly funded galleries, as art was brought out of the privileged postcodes of west London, and to the working people. Landmark exhibitions down the decades includ the showing of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in 1938, and This Is Tomorrow in 1956. Now the gallery is growing again, having added the space next door vacated by Whitechapel Library.
The gallery scene around Whitechapel and Spitalfields has burgeoned in recent years of course, as new young artists and owners have moved in. Some of these have been crucial in showing exciting new work by up and coming London artists. Check out the Showroom in Bethnal Green’s Bonner Road, IAP Fine Art in Roman Road, and of course the Chisenhale Gallery in Bow. There is the Five Princelet Street Gallery (we reckon you’ll be able to work out the address), rather attractively set in an early Georgian house. Spitalfields also has the Spitz Gallery, a photojournalism space in Old Spitalfields Market.
Another moribund building pressed into new use is the 291 Gallery - in a beautifully converted neo-Gothic church in Hackney Road. Also check out the Lupe Gallery of Photography, snugly up against Columbia Road flower market. Heading over to Jack Dash House on the Isle of Dogs, you’ll find the Dash Gallery, a circular space, whose recent offerings have included magical landscape paintings by Shafique Uddin.
And if you want to get right away from London, visit the The Sweet Tea House, in Globe Road, Bethnal Green. This contemporary Tibetan Art Gallery opened in October 2003, and is the first gallery in Europe to exhibit and promote contemporary Tibetan art and artists.
You can find a full list of these galleries and museums in Tower Hamlets, their contact details and directions on how to reach them at http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/data/discover/data/museums/index.cfm. You’ll also find links from here to all the websites of the individual museums. And if you don’t have the internet at home, just pop into one of the Ideas Stores, where you’ll be able to go online for more.