The Museum of Nottingham Life (Nottingham)

The table was covered in the bright green cloth of Lincoln scattered with children's games, the reflection in the large mirror of the heavy Victorian sideboard reproduce the image of the china tea service, the brass oil lamp and the big family bible. In the other corner was the Grandfather clock no longer ticking and the hearth of the fire place with it's big cast iron fender framing the roaring open coal fire reminded me of the days of my childhood ...
...front parlour right down to the piano that now lay silent but in my mind I could hear the tinkling notes that over 30 years ago I had heard when my brother attempted to play. But I wasn't in Aunt Carrie's house, I was stood in the Victorian parlour in the Museum of Nottingham Life at the Brew House Yard.

With a week off work and the weather cold and blustery with unpredictable showers, Mum and I were having another day out but then ... more

The table was covered in the bright green cloth of Lincoln scattered with children's games, the reflection in the large mirror of the heavy Victorian sideboard reproduce the image of the china tea service, the brass oil lamp and the big family bible. In the other corner was the Grandfather clock no longer ticking and the hearth of the fire place with it's big cast iron fender framing the roaring open coal fire reminded me of the days of my childhood visiting my Great, Great Aunt Caroline. This room was virtually identical to her front parlour right down to the piano that now lay silent but in my mind I could hear the tinkling notes that over 30 years ago I had heard when my brother attempted to play. But I wasn't in Aunt Carrie's house, I was stood in the Victorian parlour in the Museum of Nottingham Life at the Brew House Yard.

With a week off work and the weather cold and blustery with unpredictable showers, Mum and I were having another day out but then again as many of you already know Mum and I will find any excuse to have a day out in a couple of museums. This time we chose one of our favourites having visited many times over the last 30 years.

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HISTORY

Nottingham sits on what geologists refer to as Bunter Pebble Beds, a sedimentary sandstone rock from the geological Trias period around 230 million years ago. From early times caves were carved into this rock to be used as dwellings, storage and industry like tanning and in particular malting and brewing.

In mediaeval times the name given to the piece of land lying between the Castle Rock, and the old bed of the River Leen was Rock-yard because of the caves in the rock below the Nottingham Castle. Brewers found the caves were ideal for their trade because they remained dry and at a constant temperature perfect for brewing and storage of beer.

Not surprisingly many breweries, inns and houses sprang up around it and the name Brew House Yard began its use around 1610. Once a thriving community of 20 cottages adjacent to the famous The Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn established in 1189 and the oldest remaining inn in England, only five red brick houses remain fronting the hand cut rock chambers in the rear that were used as additional rooms, storage and cellars and during World War II as air raid shelters.

In 1977 these cottages were renovated and converted into The Museum of Nottingham Life, with articles and objects illustrating the social history with a realistic glimpse of life over the last three hundred years including a school room and toy shop from the 1930's and a Victorian chemist.

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HOW TO GET THERE

There are many signposts throughout the city centre directing you to Nottingham Castle, The Robin Hood Statue, the Tales of Robin hood as well as other notable landmarks of the city

Located to the west of the city centre, the main entrance is accessible from A6005 Castle Boulevard with a side entrance on Castle Road from the Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub and five minutes from the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre.

There is easy access to numerous multi-storey car parks and links to public transport including the new NET Nottingham Express Transit Tram system, Nottingham Midland Train Station and Broadmarsh Bus Station all within 5 - 10 minutes walking distance.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

There is limited access for wheelchairs as there are no lifts or access to upper floors however there is a room where audio and visual recordings are shown of upper floors that can not be reached. The stair to upper floors are steep, narrow and with bend requiring care to negotiating them.

There are benches and a grassed area in front of the building for your own picnics and lunches, (for nine years during the spring and summer months I would eat my lunch here as I worked around the corner). Food and drink is not allowed within the museums itself.

Photography is allowed anywhere within the museum although in some places a flash is required

Allow around two hours to enjoy the museum. You can walk around at your own leisure as there is no guided tour.

Inside the museum is a no smoking area.

ADMISSION AND OPENING TIMES

Main Museum
Open: Daily 10.00am - 4.30pm with last admission at 4.00pm
Closed: 24th - 26th December and 1st - 2nd January

Rock Cottage (School Room and Toy Shop)
Open: Daily 10.00am 12.00pm 1.45pm - 4.30pm
Closed: 24th - 26th December and 1st - 2nd January

Admission: Joint ticket with Nottingham Castle (valid for 1 week)
Payable at the counter in the museum shop
Adults £3
Children & concessions £1.50
Children under 5 free
Family Ticket - £7 (2 adults & up to 3 children)
Group rate: one free ticket for every ten tickets purchased
Nottingham City Library & Nottingham City Leisure Card holders' free admission on weekdays

Now this is excellent value for money you can visit two museums and the Castle grounds any time everyday for a whole week. However when special events are taking place in the Castle grounds the Joint ticket is not valid therefore to avoid paying the full cost for one museum pick your visit time beforehand.

REFRESHMENTS & SOUVENIR SHOP

There is a souvenir shop, it is open from 10.00am - 4.00pm daily, selling modern reproductions of toys of the past such as whip and top, hoopla, Diablo, monkeys on stick, marbles, bow and arrows and the odd musical instrument. There are also postcards and fridge magnets with 1940's WWII poster images such as savings bonds, Dig for England and Winston Churchill or famous brand labels. You can also find jars of jams and bottled preserved fruits as well as soft drinks and a few sweets.

There unfortunately is not café but the Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub next door to the museum does serve hot and cold drinks along with hot and cold meals at reasonable prices. (A courtyard is accessible for children)

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THE PARLOUR

I have already described to you the first room you visit in my introduction however I did not mention there is a barrier across the width of the room so you can only look over it. There is a large mirror and mantle above the fireplace and an old Singer sewing machine on the table. The information cards say that this room is based on a 1870's best room/front room/parlour and was seldom used. My Mum would beg to differ as it looks more like the living room that was used every day.

While we were there a school party of 12 children and two teachers just ahead of us. Many of the children were fascinated as I remember being at the age of 10 but unfortunately there was one little boy who stood kicking at the door jamb looking much like he was sulking or bored.

THE KITCHEN

The kitchen here is one of the rooms where you can interact with its contents. Visitors can freely touch and hold objects in here, I have, and it also helps you understand how things worked. I have heard many a story from Mum of the kitchen at home when she grew up. This is a big open room with a table in the centre, a clothes pulley over a cooking range to dry the clothes a large cupboard in the corner and a couple of dressers against the walls.

The big black cooking range and fire is set into the wall, on one side is a tank you fill with water to heat up and the other is the oven, the fire is in the centre. There are pans and a kettle exactly as Mum described and she showed me what things were and commented on how during winter Grandma would put bricks in the over to heat up and then put them in the beds to warm them. I couldn't help but laugh when Mum opened the oven door and there on the shelf was a brick.

In the cupboard were large pans, storage jars, an old vacuum cleaner and a big wooden butter churn that still turned albeit a little stiffly. In the dressers were shoe polish, soap powders, a cut throat razor, sharpening strap, shaving soap and brush, jars of pickles, mixing bowls, rolling pin, plates, dishes and cutlery. From the drawers I got a distinct medicinal astringent smell from the carbolic soap I found there, I picked it up the texture felt waxy. From the shelves I opened tins and smelled the nutmeg, cedar wood, vanilla pods and other spices and on the front was a meat tenderiser, a bean slicer and what I think was a marmalade shredder.

The corner reveals a hand pump which you can operate although water no longer flows from it and a large shallow stone sink. I remember when my parents bought the house they currently live in and before they began the extensive renovations it still retained all the fixtures and fitting from the day it was built in 1898. Throughout the house there wasn't a single electrical wire, light was provided by gas lamps on the walls heat from coal fires, and water supplied from a single cold water tap over a shallow stone sink. There was no bathroom, the toilet was outside with a wooden door next to the coal shed. That stone sink was in the back garden for many years after the renovations; Mum used it for potting plants on.

THE VICTORIAN CHEMIST

A fascinating room is the chemist or pharmacy. The left wall is lined with mahogany wooden shelves and cabinets filled with jars of powders, chemicals and remedies: the dispensing area. This is where medicines were made up with many of the jars old and clouded with powder, some are empty and some filled to almost overflowing.

In front of dispensing area is a cabinet if filled with bottles and packets as are the display cases along the back wall with ointments, creams, gels and other items that you could probably find in a chemist even today.

The far wall has a counter with a big cash register sat on top of it. Unfortunately the keys no longer work and the drawer does not open as I remember it once doing. Also on this counter is what looks like an old enamel bed pan but I am not too sure.

Mum said it reminded her of the little apothecary on Arkwright Street when she was young, the Chemist would make up a bottle of 4 halfpennyworth drops a form of analgesic for children, whenever Mum was sick, Grandma would buy these drops to help reduce temperature and helped Mum sleep at night.

I can just imagine from this room is what the first Boots Chemist on Goose Gate was like and from that tiny shop has since grown into a national chain known by virtually everyone.

EDWARDIAN GROCERY SHOP

The ground floor corner room is the shop. Along the length of the room is a wide glass fronted counter in which reside large round cheeses like Stilton and Cheddar, butter from CWS (Co-operative Wholesale Society also one of the largest dairies in Nottingham at that time) and their cream and milk churns. There are big square steel tins of Crawfords and Peek Freens biscuits, soaps, shoe polish, washing powders and other cleaning materials. On the counter top is the cash box surrounded by a wooden barrier, a large set of shiny brass scales still with imperial measurements next to a Fry's Chocolate display cabinet.

From the ceiling hang advertising bunting, meats and hams in muslin; an old telephone is on the wall and the back of the shop dominated by another long counter with sacks of wheat flour, sugar, oatmeal and potatoes beneath it. Mum told me when these cloth sacks were empty the shop keeper would sell them for a few pennies. At home they would be washed or maybe bleached, opened out and hemmed for blankets, table cloths or the base for rag rugs.

On the back counter is a hand turning bacon slicer , a meat mincer and a very large slab of marble on which lay trays of eggs, a large cake and butter paddles. "It's just like Mrs Parry's," Mum said, "minus the smells. I used to help her by making the butter pats."

Around the walls are shelves filled with bottles and jars, cans and packets, marmalade in stoneware jars with some brands that can still be bought today: Oxo, Borax, Birds custard, Fairy soap powder, England's Glory matches, Colmans mustard and many, many more items.

It is such a pity many of these little shops have now gone to be replaced by mini markets or the supermarket. These shops were not just for retail but a place in which to socialise and catch up with the gossip.

THE BEDROOM

Two beds were made up with pillows at both ends reminding me of the Grandparents in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. For large families in small houses this was ideal when you could fit two children in a single bed or up to 6 children in a double bed. The blankets are a little rough and there are rag rugs on the wooden floors, the mattresses are lumpy but the sheets crisp and white.

Over in the corner was a commode bucket and on a stand a porcelain jug and wash basin. A very basic room really, with thin curtains at the windows and a hoop and skipping rope on the wall. This is what brings me to my opinion it is a children's bedroom.

OTHER ROOMS

Each exhibit room has information cards you can read to find out more about what it was used for but one of the advantages of this museum is the availability for children and adults alike to interact with the exhibits in these rooms. Although old, many of the exhibits are in excellent condition and in some cases still in working order despite continual handling or touching by the public. Other least robust item are in glass cases.

What is most noticeable is the use of mahogany wood in many rooms; all highly polished to a warm finish.

On the ground floor you can find the interactive gallery "Search for Brew House Yard" exhibition. This contains information boards with photographs, displays and video screen showing the history of the buildings and the surrounding area but also, for those who are unable to climb the stairs to upper floors, a video of the rooms that can been seen above.

Some rooms consist solely of cabinets filled with a plethora it everyday items.

A room for babies and toddlers items throughout the years, behind glass panels are nursery equipment, high chairs and baby swings many made from wood and date back decades, a beautiful lace draped cradle, and an old birthing stool looking like a high backed squat chair with a big opening in the middle and front.

There are sections for reproduction and birth including examples of prophylactics and birth control, expectant mother booklets, feeding baby section with ranges of bottles in ceramic, glass and plastic, dummies and pacifiers, tins of baby food, spoons, and dishes and dried milk. Also different types of bath, potties, nappies, powders and creams for bathing.

Hanging from the rafters are washing lines with terry nappies and an assortment of baby clothing both modern and old with items so small they look like bunting. But one thing beneath all this clothing is a pram, one very much the style my Mum used for me, my sister and brother back in the late 60's and early 70's.

Another room is filled it items such knitting patterns, wool and needles, football memorabilia from Nottingham Forest and Notts County such as programmes, 1960's records from the Beatles, examples of shoes and children's dress up clothes, books and annuals from television during the 1970's, a handful of toys and games, dishes and plates, glassware and coin collection

Electronic equipment is here too, like old electric razors, electric irons, and old red telephone, instructions how to wire a 3 pin plug, an early television set, an early portable record player, radios, pocket calculators and a teas maid. There is also Sinclair computer,

There is a section for WWII with the ARP warder uniform, gas masks, ration books, dried milk and eggs, and a model of one of the small incendiary devices dropped in the bombings during May 1941.

1920S SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

The 1920's Shopping Experience can be heard before it is seen. Vintage cars and their horns and horses and carriages, whistles and bells, voices shouting and calling can be heard as you ascend the winding steps to the third level of the building and pass the delivery boy's bicycle.

Here has been recreated in a row of shops including barbershop, pawnbroker shop with the three balls sign hanging outside, the electrical shop with electric fires and light bulbs, ironmongers with locks, keys, heavy irons, and pans, and the doctors surgery with a sign on the door saying back soon gone to deliver a baby. There is also music shop filled with instruments, a gramophone, with old 78 records and shelves filled with scrolls and rolls of sheet music, a hairdressers, a tobacconist and a pub. Each shop has an authentically designed frontage complete with the signs and picture windows offering you a glimpse inside.

The biggest of these shops is the cobbler and saddler with its big counter, the shoe polishing machine, racks of shoes in all states of repair, horses yoke which was often seen on a dray or plough animal and harnesses, leather bags and suitcases, A stitching machine sits in the middle of the floor and one of those machine you would see even now that has polishing and grinding stones turning at speed to grind or smooth the heels of shoes against the back wall.

Such a fascinating area where you can gaze into the shops and see the items you could buy in the 1920's. This shopping arcade area is darkened and the ceiling is low so mind your footing and your head as you go.

ROCK COTTAGE

Perched half way up the side of the sandstone bluff with access gained by the stairs in front sits the Rock Cottage, the fifth and final cottage. On its ground floor you can find the School Room to the left and the Toy Shop to the right. The upper floors are private.

THE SCHOOL ROOM

With the clock on the wall is set to 9 o'clock, the School Room contains s few of the features of former Wellington Street School of the 1930's with two columns of three rows of wooden desks with the tall lectern like teachers desk in front of a big slate black board. Along the far wall are large slightly faded maps of the world below which are desk where you can lift the lid and see revealed exercise books, text books, drawings and papers relating to geography, anatomy, mathematics and even samples of calligraphy. In the Teachers desk when you lift the heavy wooden lid lays a register and an old cane and the cupboard at the front displays confiscated toys and other items.

Many of these desks bear the scars of use from hundreds of children often with names carved into the lid and worn feint over the years. One such desk has an inch high letter F carved into it. Years ago when my grandma came along with us on a visit she told me how she was caned by the teacher for carving her initials into her desk lid. When she entered the room she commented how the desks look very much like the ones at her school, but the look of absolute disbelief if not a little awe crossed her face when she saw the graffiti and exclaimed "That's my desk, there is my initial!" My grandma's name was Florence.

THE TOY SHOP

In the right hand room of the Rock Cottage is the Toy Shop with its tall glass fronted cabinets and would be a feast to the eyes to any child. The first thing you see when you enter the room is the beautifully carved, wooden rocking horse in the centre of the red and black tiled floor.

Next you see the cabinets filled with toys from the last 200 years. On the counter is a child's tricycle behind which are shelves filled with miniature china crockery and children's tea services. In the cabinets you find books, carved wooden toys, tin soldiers, a model railway, trains dolls marbles, dice, knuckle bones, snobs, whip and top, hoops, skipping ropes dolls house and many more items.

In the drawers are games, some of which are still around today like tiddly winks made from shell and horn, bingo with little round wooden numbers painted in red, snakes and ladders in Victorian design.

THE CAVES

The only thing I have not mentioned are the caves at the rear of the cottages. The cottages snugly built into the caves making them more of an extension to the buildings. The caves are not dark and dank nor are they smelly or wet in fact they are all quite dry and comfortable. Little wonder people would extend backwards from their houses creating a bigger home. A prime example of such a type of extension is next door in the Trip where you have the bars directly within the rock. It makes for a cosy atmosphere and surprisingly snug. One part of these caves is a reproduction but twice the size of an Anderson air raid shelter made from corrugate steel with benches and information boards inside. Each Anderson shelter was 7 ½ feet by 6 feet, they were cold, cramped, smelly and often damp. They did not back on to rock but dug out of the garden, steel walls and roof erected and earth compacted over the top. Not exactly the safest place to be with bombs dropping around you. You can ask a member of staff to activate the shelter exhibit when you get there and you can experience by audio an air raid.

AFTERWORD

Although I had visited this museum many times on previous visits, it still held wonder for me as there is always something new to spot that I had overlooked on previous visits, from the old favourites my mother remembers to the more recent wonders like the TSB moneyboxes my siblings and I had as children. I suppose in years to come some of the future exhibits may very well be home computers, DVD players, electric washer/dryers, microwave ovens and even a Buzz Lightyear or Telly Tubby doll and many marvels of the last 25 years.

This museum is most certainly a very educational experience, as the items on show those used by the people of Nottingham. But, in a way, I would say this is not just a museum of Nottingham life, but life in general all over the country as I am sure that anyone from Lands End to John O'Groates would not fail to recognize something in this building or find fascination of the past in its rooms.

Now finally at an end I hope you will please excuse me, Mum and I are just popping next door to the Trip for a spot of lunch before we make our way up the hill to the castle and explore some more.

Melodysparks 2006 ©

 

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