The Tower - Palace and Prison

The Tower of London
- @ITweetMuseums

Originally built in 1078, and being constantly extended and rebuilt until 1399. The Tower of London is one of the most iconic historic buildings in the UK and millions of people all over the world come to visit it every year to take a look at the Royal Armouries and the Crown Jewels. 

Throughout the grounds you can visit most of the building learning the many different stages of the fortification, and the Royal palace living courtiers. Each section has the history about the building and some related artefacts displayed there.  

The main building is obviously the most iconic of the whole palace complex is the White Tower. With-in the building you will find the Royal Armouries and their long term display of the Line of Kings and their weaponry displays. 

Henry VIII armour in the
Line of Kings display.

The Line of Kings display was established in 1660 after the restoration of the monarchy in England. The exhibition was to promote the King's right to rule. 

As there aren't examples of armour for every monarch. They only displayed armour they had to hand and just added the names and dates to each descriptions. The display originally only displayed the good kings such as, William the Conqueror; no bad king was displayed but only later on they started to appear. This 17th Century propaganda was to show a continues link of good and great kings to strengthen the king's right to the crown, after such a uneasy reputation after the civil war. 

The collection was rearranged and dispersed over the years. The display today has be reassembled to showcase the history of the English monarchy and is the worlds longest visitor attraction. 

Also displayed in the White Tower is the long history of how the Royal Palace was also used in its later years as a prison and a place of execution and the history of weaponry.

The most visited attraction of the Tower is the Crown Jewels. The role of the Tower for many years was to protect the treasures of the monarchy. Even though the coronation tradition as been used for the past 1000 years, the jewels in the Tower today are quite modern. Most of the jewels in Jewel House were made in the late 1600s, the jewels before that were destroyed after the brief removal of the monarchy. 

So this is a great place to learn about the buildings and the Monarchy through the Royal Armoury and the Crown Jewels.

Natural History Museum

Lego Museums visited the Natural History Museum on the 12th September 2014. This Museum is a architectural marvel with the amazing decorative tiles all over the museum itself. You might be coming to the museum for the natural history but the museum itself is soaked in architectural history, as well the historic and famous dino Skeletal model Dippy the Diplodocus who you are hit with once you enter the building itself.  

Dippy the Diplodocus 109 years old

The whole place is jam packed with animal history from Dinos to the Human story of Evolution and some species that you can recognise even today. Although you will need to book about a week off to even scratch the surface of the amount of stuff with in this huge museum. It is definitely worth the time to come down and see what they have to offer. 

Will has lost interest in the
evolution of Man for some reason.

This is a great place for children as they will be amazed by the huge and mind blowing specimens that are shown throughout the museum. There is a wildlife garden where they could run around and explore and have fun. This is the best place where they can have fun and learn at the same time. This will keep them occupied until exhaustion but it will all be worth the effort.  

This museum is also well placed in a street grouping of all the great museums in London; the V & A Museum, Science Museum and of course Natural History Museum. So if you feel like a change of scenery then you have a museum which is only a stone throw away. So go and have fun and explore until you're mind explodes.    

Visit Shakespeare's Globe.

Lego Museums visited the Globe's exhibit within the reconstruction of the 1997 on 25th July 2014. The project was brought together by one man Sam Wanamaker. He believed in bringing the famous playwrights world, William Shakespeare, to life on stage. As Shakespeare said himself in As You Like It: 

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages..." Act 2 Scene 7.

William Rowley you got the lines all wrong. It's "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him".

Sam has really brought the Elizabethan theatre to life with this such iconic scene of the Tudor past. Everything about the place gives the visitor or audience a time machine to the 16th and 17th century theatre. 

As for the exhibit that they have on the same site as the theatre itself; it is a small but lively exhibit showing the life of Tudor England, the history of both the Globe and Shakespeare, as well as talking of the history of English acting and theatre. Along side this historic side of things you look at the painstaking work that went into researching and constructing the Globe that everyone knows and loves today. You have a choice to look around the exhibit on your own or have a tour of what you can see as well as within the Globe itself.

Lego Shakespeare meets the man who brought his Globe back to life, Sam Wanamaker.

The Globe uses its history to agian school audiences by teaching them about Shakespearean acting as well as fashion and history with their number of workshops they have to offer the interest young people in drama, history and of course Shakespeare. As we all know learning about him and his plays were not always a highlight of school if you are just reading his plays. So what the Globe is doing is making it interesting to those who may not like history or old literature. 

This is a great place to go if you're a fan of Shakespeare, Tudors and Elizabethan theatre then is worth a go and see of the exhibit and the theatre to see a play. 

British Museum

Lego Museums visited the British Museum in 23th May 2014. The famous British Museum is known to have a large collection of world historic artefacts from Egypt to Britain itself. This is the oldest National Museum in the World. Where ever the objects come from, there is a huge diversity of the all periods the country of origin. All these objects that are held here are mixed with the most well-known to the unknown e.g. the Rosetta stone, Elgin Marbles to Prehistoric mask of Star Carr and the Iron Age Waterloo Helmet.

Will going into the British Museum

If you are going to the British Museum, would suggest that you really need a stand of silk thread or bread crumbs to found your way out of the labyrinth of gallery full to the brim of world history. 

As you walk into the museum you are hit with the celebrated Great Court. Visitors across the globe look up to have a set of the huge arched glass roof. While in this centre piece of the museum you may enter the main galleries, including the Room of Enlightenment and the long Egyptian exhibit that holds the legendary Rosetta stone.

Will walking through the Great Court.

Will reading some books in the Room of Enlightenment.

If you plan to go to the museum for one day, see and enjoy everything you might be disappointed. As there is over 70 rooms that are flowing with history waiting to be looked at over a number of days. There is a room for everyone's historic tastes. You can see what most appeal to you or go adventurous and see the things you wouldn't necessarily see or with you would be interested in. As a whole the museums is fantastic for young and elderly historic fanatics. The museum is bursting with history so you days of fun at the museum.

The Egyptian Gallery.     

Regularly the museum hosts many different temporary exhibitions like the Viking: Life and Legends; and Eight Mummies, Eight Lives, Eight Stories. Which were on and starting when we visited. Lego Museums will be visiting most of these exhibitions when new ones come about so keep an eye out for new posts of each matter. These temporary exhibitions are normally exclusive to the British Museum, so come and see the ones you wish while you can.

Vikings: Life and Legend

Lego Museums visited the British Museum and its temporary exhibit Vikings: Life and Legend on 23th May 2014. This exhibit is dedicated to the lives of the Viking and looking past the myth of horned helmet savages. This exhibit shows that they were more than raiders from the east to still from the west. They are portrayed in the galleries show that they were patrons of art and religion. Rather than the blood thirsty heathens we hear of today.

Will is a fan of the Vikings. 

Throughout the galleries there are shown weapons that tell you they are more than just used for war but also used for status, showing loyalty and even used after death as ritual offerings. They were men of fashion with clothespins which also show off their love of art. As well as this they show that they were very religious with pendants to Thor, Odin, etc. With this they believe they also believed in the use of magic. Having teeth and plaster paw prints pendants to gain the power and abilities of the animal they come from. Almost like Shamanic beliefs.

Moving though to case to case you have a flood of information that is given to you by linking the objects that you see in there with the information that is given, rather than taking about the individual artefacts in turn they almost use them all as one.

 Oh Will might change his mind about them.

Going into the main hall of the exhibit you will found the overwhelming Roskilde 6, an 11th century Viking ship. This is the centrepiece of the show and quite right to. Even though there is not much of the real timbers left you still get that intimidation of the size with the modern metal frame that they are placed in, which are there to show the visitor the original size and shape of this monster of a ship.  

Although this is a great exhibit, it has had some bad reviews, such as "the cattle crush of this exhibition" by the Museums Association Journal. Yes this exhibit was crowded but in my opinion it was just because it was so popular. So you can't really blame the exhibit at all really with that one. I did have a lot of people complaining around me to their friends and family the business of the galleries but most of the people I saw around were enjoying the lush of information they had before them and getting real stuck in with all the interesting stuff the galleries had to offer.