Museum of the Order of Saint John

I met with a friend to visit the Museum of the Order of Saint John. It was her idea as the museum wasn't really on my radar. She writes for Chetham's Library blog which you can read here.

I didn't really know what to expect, I'm not good on medieval history. I expected knights, but whilst there it dawned on me, that, aside from knowing them as playmobil characters and as dressing up costumes, I didn't really know what a knight or an order was.  

There are clues, you can tell that there were men and they fought battles,

 protected by helmets, shields and chain mail armour.

Obviously not offering complete protection.

But their remit went beyond fighting and protecting, to serving the sick and the poor.

In the 11th century in Jerusalem, Hospitallers, "cared for anyone without distinction of race or faith". From this was born the Order of Saint John and their military arm became the Knights of the Order of Saint John.

Caring for the sick, they stored their medicine in pharmacy jars.

And this looks suspiciously like a bed pan, or perhaps bed warmer.
I forgot to check the label.

These silver platters give us a hint to the Order's rules and values, that the sick were to be, "regarded as if they were Christ, and deserved the utmost respect". Another reason may have been that silver was easy to keep clean and has natural antibacterial properties. 

In the 12th century the order left Jerusalem, sailing across the Mediterranean Sea to Rhodes and Malta to continue their quest to provide food, shelter and safety for travellers.

The badge that you probably recognise from the St John Ambulance, has been their badge for centuries. It has been imprinted onto bread,

and has decorated breastplates and habits.

It wasn't all men. This is Saint Ubaldesca from Pisa. 

I was gradually beginning to understand what this religious military order did, and their place in history. But it wasn't until eating breakfast the next day, perusing the gumpf I had picked up in reception, reading the St John's Trail written for kids, that I really got it. Well the version you've just read above.

I still may well be wrong and there is a lot more to this story, including peregrines, prayer books, canon balls, and door knockers. And their 12th century English headquarters, the Priory of Saint John in Clerkenwell, London, the site of this museum.

Visit the Museum of the Order of Saint John and see it all for yourself.

Still a bit confused? There's more to help kids (and adults) understand.

Like their 'Family Activity Chest'.

Unfortunately we didn't have any kids with us this time.

Check out the Museum of the Order of Saint John in Clerkenwell, London.

Open Monday -Saturday, details on their website here.

As you can probably guess, this story continues on until the 20th century with the St John Ambulance. More on that story in a later blog post.

Newton Abbot Museum

I'd been waiting to visit Newton Abbot Museum for a while. Waiting until we next went to Devon, to see my mum in the Easter holidays, as quite a few local museums in Devon are closed for the winter. 

It didn't bode well at first when, after we'd parked very close by, we asked someone where it was and they "didn't even know Newton Abbot had a museum".

It's proper name is Newton Abbot Town & Great Western Railway Museum.

It was so well worth the wait.

It was one of those museums that gives you a tingly feeling, a sense of excitement as it draws you in.

We were given the warmest welcome, in the smallest room, with the largest fire surround.

This is the Sandford Orleigh overmantle. Made in the sixteenth century from over twenty carved oak panels. It has been recently restored through the Heart of Oak project.  

We were invited to see if we could work out which wooden figures were new and which were original. You could sort of work it out. This didn't detract from the wonder of it. We just gained great admiration for the craftsman who re-carved the missing parts. 

In Newton Abbot Museum there have been other craftsmen at work, making things from wood. This time an eighteenth century replica diving machine, designed to be used to recover valuable cargoe from sunken ships.

John Lethbridge, a pretty unsuccessful local wool merchant, designed and used the original machine, becoming a successful salvage diver in his forties.

 This automation helps you get the picture.

However it could go down to depths of 22 metres.

"Apparently people died because of the pressure they experienced on their arms."

Not as far as a Sperm Whale,

and a military submarine knocks spots off that, at 3000 metres.

Fortunately you don't have to go to any depth for the obligitory museum selfie.

Absorbed in John Lethbridge's story, I lost the kids but I could hear bells, train signals.

I followed the sound to the most amazing room.

 Under the watchful eye of an encouraging volunteer, signals were being pulled...

...and bells rung.

There weren't any tracks to move but, spot the difference,

the signal moved.

I loved this signal. Undeterred by having to fit a full-size train signal into a downstairs room of, what was effectively, a large town house, they just dug down to get it to fit in.

We had such fun in this room with civil engineer dad sharing his stories of times

on the tracks.

"I've pulled those levers for real, in a signal box in Sussex. You have to put your weight behind them and pull really hard. They even use a tea-towel in an actual signal box, to protect your hands."

"I used one of those horns, working on the tracks, you have to blow really hard. When you hear the horn 'blow up' you stand clear, there's a train coming. Site wardens are trained to 'blow up', to keep look-out. Site wardens are a 'walking, talking fence'". Yes really.

That's the horn on the left. 

Dad's can be quite boring and they're more impressed with the Brunel hat!

The GWR room is jam packed with social history and stories of the impact the railway had on the local area.

My mum and I loved this book.

These photographs, the volunteer told us, were the views from both sides of the railway, so it sort of makes sense to have one view upside down.

Of course, we had to find Teignmouth. Still recogniseable today.

"There's the Ness and Shaldon Bridge."

A train spotters paradise. Even photos in 3D.

They really did look three dimensional, but not digitally photograph-able.

Then there's Newton Abbot's history of the First World War.

And the 'Noteable Newtonians', of which there are many.

What a tour, from sixteenth century wood carvings to the bottom of the ocean

to Brunel's Great Western Railway.

I would like this post to be widely read, not so much for the benefit of my blog, but for the benefit of this most lovely museum, telling genuinely local stories of achievement and history. Staffed by volunteers with such energy and enthusiasm. It does regional museums and Newton Abbot proud.

Check out the Newton Abbot Town & G.W.R. museum website, here, for opening times

as well as a wealth of information about what they've been up to.

Open mid-March until October.

And if you bump into a local who, "didn't even know Newton Abbot had a museum",

take them with you, they should know about it.  

Tate Britain from the floor

This is a kind of guest blog post. Well it's a joint effort, I scribed.

Introducing my eleven, very nearly twelve, year old son.

Who I "made" go to Tate Britain with his mum, sister and friends.

Getting the following photos came about quite by chance, when he inventively and creatively got himself out of the "it's boring" place when he began documenting his visit on his mobile phone. He insisted on bringing his phone with him because he was going to be bored. As far as I could tell, this was so he could ignore us all and play games on the train into central London. But he didn't play games.

He took photos. And played with the settings on the camera.

First the panorama setting, "in the massive hall".

"Mum, that's you in the photo and a man who walked along while I took the photo so he's in it twice"

The photo below is taken by me. I found the boys like this, on the floor taking photos, happily ignoring the stares by staff and visitors.

These are some of the photos my son took whilst lying on the floor in the Christina Mackie sculpture.

"This is a diagonal panorama that didn't work because the net is split into three."

Then they tried it in the other galleries.

Next he played with the 'cartoon' setting, experimenting on me in the cafe first.

I hate photos of me, and contrary to what this looks like, I was having a really nice time.

He couldn't wait to get back to the "massive hall", but some of the attraction was being able to skid around on the shiny floor.

and then take photos of these "two sisters, who look like like mine in the future".

Here's how he described the paintings that he took photos of.

"This is three boys playing in a tree with a dog and a lethal weapon, a bow".

"This man looked important."

"Horses grazing, the white horse is the odd one out."

" A weird pose."

"Trees. These trees looked special because they were hidden behind a cloth."
(They were under a cloth, hidden away from the light.)

"I'm not being rude but that was the first black guy I saw in a painting in the museum and it proves that discrimination in those times was real."

"Jesus healing a sick woman."

"A Roman Colosseum."

"She looks like she's lost."

"This looks like the lady from the boat who has fallen in the river and looks even more lost."

"Me."

"I was bored so I found out what my phone could do."

I've been thinking about why I've written this post, bothered to show this to others. It's not about my son, or me, or the seemingly worthy Easter holiday trip to an art gallery, to the Tate Britain. But I wanted to flag up the ways children can access museums and galleries. And, dare I say it, the creative and inventive ways mobile phones can be used in museums. We took sketchbooks with us, even me. But my son did it his way, it wasn't planned, it wasn't expected. But I love the results, he loved the day, and next time I suggest visiting a museum or art gallery hopefully he won't protest quite so much, "because they're fun".  

I wish I had the courage to lie on the floor in art galleries.

Details about Tate Britain on the website here.
Take kids, a camera and see what happens.