National Maritime Museum Cornwall
Hot 2003 museum news was the opening of Cornwall's brand new National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. Until 2002 a small maritime museum was oddly tucked up an alleyway on the landward side of Market Street. But in 2003 it moved, to become part of a brand new major Maritime Museum, on the waterfront by the docks. By 2004 it had settled in well. No local museum this, however, rather the most comprehensive small-boat maritime museum in Britain, housing, amongst many other exhibits, the national collection from Greenwich. In a vast but handsome oak-clad modern building, not unlike a ship-building shed with a lighthouse tower on the end, the National Maritime Museum Cornwall Charitable Trust has assembled a most impressive collection of small boats and of technological and inter-active displays. Here are not just the artefacts but the complete maritime story in a dozen purpose-built galleries. The two most striking features come at the beginning of your visit. After enjoying a superb showcase of scale models, you find yourself on a ramp leading past the screens of a vast audio-visual theatre telling the story of the sea – with impressive lighting and sound effects. Then, as you continue up, you find yourself alongside the ‘Flotilla’, a comprehensive small-boat collection spanning 150 years and including racing dinghies, record breakers, working boats, fishing vessels, canoes, punts, rafts and coracles. Simple interactive displays offer more information. A gallery is home to works by the Royal Society of Marine Artists and to an exhibition on the packet boats that sailed from Falmouth. At the top of the tower - reached by stairs or elevator - is a viewing gallery with telescopes and local displays. In the basement you are underwater with related displays. At ground level you will find a 'pilchard cellar' from the original Falmouth museum, sail loft, working boatyard where craftsmen work on restorations - and even a pool where children (of all ages) can try their model sailing skills.
Observation Tower
April 2007 - Revisit - 'Flotilla' revamped: new, better inter-active displays
More in Museums & Galleries
Newlyn Gallery and Exchange Gallery
July 2007 - Newlyn Gallery must have come into some money recently. Not only has it built a new caf� and bookshop extension to the original Passmore Edwards building on the eastern fringe of Newlyn, it has also acquired a brand new gallery in the heart of Penzance, the Exchange Gallery just off the town's attractive Chapel Street. We can't claim that our taste in art matches theirs but we do admire the new buildings and we imagine that the caf�s will prove a big attraction. We took a look at both places when we went to Penlee House for their marvellous Stanhope Forbes exhibition, definitely our taste. The exhibiton in Newlyn Gallery was quite beyond our comprehension; that in the Exchange Gallery, called Social Systems, was comprehensible but hardly our thing.
North Cornwall Museum at Camelford
Unusually, North Cornwall Museum in Camelford is privately owned. Entirely appropriately for a museum that is concerned with the countryside and its trades and skills, the buiilding it occupies was originally the workshop of a maker of horse-drawn coaches and wagons. The museum's many wide ranging collections are surprisingly comprehensive and well displayed and explained. The period covered is very roughly the first half of the 20th century. I visited for the first time in September 2007 and greatly enjoyed my visit.
Penlee House in Penzance - Home of the Newlyn School
Built in 1865, and standing in a pleasant small park near the centre of Penzance, not far from Morrab Gardens and the seafront, Penlee House was completely refurbished in 1997. It contains West Cornwall's largest art collection, primarily the local Newlyn School of the late 19th century. Expect to see slightly romantic views of working fishermen and locals on the beach and around the harbour. Amongst the leading lights of the Newlyn School exhibited here are Stanhope Forbes, its best known name, Frank Bramley, Norman Garstin, Thomas Cooper Gotch, Walter Langley, 'Lamorna' Birch and Henry Scott Tuke. We particularly enjoy the gallery's regular special exhibitions, covering differing aspects of the Newlyn School's work. There is also a museum, founded in 1839; this covers 6000 years of Cornish history, archaeology and commerce, and has displays of fine art and the decorative arts. Also in Penzance and adjoining Newlyn you will find differing galleries at the Penzance Arts Club (may be closed now), the Exchange Gallery and the ultra contemporary Newlyn Gallery; the latter tends to put on shows which are well beyond our comprehension. More Newlyn School Paintings are found at Falmouth Art Gallery and the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro.