Saturday 5 November 2011

Museum of London Docklands

I was forced to go up to that London last weekend despite the tides being perfectly suitable for rowing, to take my darling daughter and her delightful cousin to a gathering of exhibitionists called Comic Con at the exhibitionists centre on the Royal Victoria Dock. While they were there I visited the new outpost of the Museum of London in Canary Wharf.
Frankly, I was expecting to spend half an hour looking at a poster display, but the Museum of London Docklands is brilliant and I ended up spending most of the day there. An all-inclusive history of London as a port, starting with the Romans. There is a superb model of Old London Bridge, based on all the known sources and probably the best representation now possible, and 'Sailortown', an evocation of the darkness, squalor and smells of the old East End.
And, of course, there is lots of stuff about rowing, with models of the wherries, peterboats and barges that used to ply their various trades on the river. It is not easy to take pictures of exhibits behind glass, but above is a model of a wherry with a waterman in traditional garb with his badge on his sleeve, plus a crutch (not a rowlock). Another model is shown below.

2 comments:

JP said...

Sounds good - I should go, even though it is the wrong end of town.

Antonio Majer said...
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