Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

If we're talking about Lynton, I'd observe that it felt petulant and performative, rather than to be taken seriously.

 

I have suggested that, but it didn't fly. I do however agree with you that this would be a good way to recover from this mess and to build up our credibility again.

 

I actually haven't been in a "serious" museum like that for many years. The past time was in the Cairo museum with the Tutankhamun displays. It was exactly as you describe, and very very hot and stuffy too! Really small museums (Watchet Market House) I also find to be as you describe. But most serious museums have upgraded now to be far more modern and much better displays. I havent been to Lynton museum for 30 years.... What's that like now?

 

I think the problem in evolving into a "modern" type museum is two fold, often, as with my local Colchester Castle, most of the artifacts are now not on display, they are stored away in the vaults and the walls to make way for those modern touchy feel and audio visual type displays. Am example is the prison cells, they are now empty, nothing in them at all and just a video plays on the wall, before was a bed, chairs and other paraphernalia. To achieve the standard of display seen in many larger museums with much more space, the displays cost an absolute fortune.
Personally I like museums where you see the real artifacts and write ups beside them. Maybe an audio visual representation here and there but mostly the real things are what I want to see.
I can understand say large museums such as the V&A, Natural History Museum etc going for hi-tech, but the cost of those displays as I found out at the Museums and Heritage show is eye watering.
One step at a time though, I expect any museum to begin with will be a bit ad hoc, and then refined as time goes on.

 

You make some good points, but you don't need to have hi-tech features. Neither does it need to be "ad-hoc". Modern, clear, well written, consistent and informative displays can be cheaply put together and can look good too. It needs someone with the vision and knowledge to do it properly and professionally.

 

Let's hope that is not instead of a railway...

 

I suppose that one could argue that the entire re-built L&BR could be a 'living museum'?

 

You could - I believe the NYMR is classified thus.

There is an important point missing in this discussion though, which is about the meaning of the word "museum". Lots of places call themselves "museums", but rather fewer have a formal accreditation of the standard. The Arts Council accreditation requires meeting a standard in nine areas:

1. Have appropriate governance and management
2. Plan ahead and have the resources to deliver your plan
3. Assess and manage risk to your organisation
4. Hold and develop collections
5. Hold useful and useable information on collections
6. Care for and conserve collections
7. Be accessible to the public
8. Understand and develop your audiences
9. Engage with your users, and improve their experience

None of that says you have to be a "modern" museum or an "old fashioned" one in terms of display; but it does place an onus on things like understanding and properly managing your collection. Some of the comments there have been up thread about items being donated and no-one now knowing quite where they are or whether they even still exist would indicate problems in that area.

Many heritage railways have "museums" but rather fewer of those museums meet an accreditation standard. A list online of the UK's accredited museums revealed that only 29 railway museums were included in that scheme:

• Bluebell Railway Museum
• Bowes Railway Museum
• Chasewater Railway Museum
• Dean Forest Railway Museum
• Didcot Railway Centre
• Downpatrick and County Down Railway
• East Anglian Railway Museum
• Head of Steam - Darlington Railway Centre & Museum
• Isle of Wight Steam Railway Museum
• Kidderminster Railway Museum
• Leighton Buzzard Railway Museum
• Mid Suffolk Light Railway Museum
• Middleton Railway Museum
• Midland Railway - Butterley
• Museum of Scottish Railways
• Narrow Gauge Railway Museum
• National Railway Museum
• Nene Valley Railway
• Newton Abbot Town and Great Western Railway Museum
• North Yorkshire Moors Railway
• Ravenglass Railway Museum
• Rhyl Miniature Railway
• Ribble Steam Railway
• St Seraphim's Icon & Railway Heritage Museum
• Statfold Barn Railway Museum
• Steam (Museum of The Great Western Railway)
• Stephenson Railway Museum
• Swanage Railway Museum
• Whitehead Railway of the RPSI

Tom

 

The staff site (now largely replaced by HOPS, I believe) and the member's only pages still have links from the archive site but are no longer updated or maintained

My favourite quote from that page is:

For example this website is administered by a volunteer from Kent!

I think that means me, but I haven't been involved in the website for over a year (I was apparently 'dismissed' in May 2022, not that anybody has actually told me!) I guess it was, like much of the text, just cut and pasted from the previous version.

 

Indeed. Careless. A lack of editing. No thought put into that aspect. Just look at the bells and whistles.

 

https://iconpainter.org.uk/

Interesting combination!

Any Orthodox amongst us?

 

Does a museum need to be accredited to qualify as a charity?

 

Two separate things, surely.

 

No. There is no obligation to become accredited, its just that it may open more funding doors. It's not a trivial process. The WSRHT has been working towards accreditation for a number of years and we are not there yet, but getting close!
Ian

 

To be honest, when I go to visit to a (railway) museum I could not care less whether or not it is 'accredited' - what interests me is the museum contents and the information about them that can be gleaned from display captions and/or discussions with well-informed staff. Having said that, I have no problems if a museum wants to seek accreditation - and no doubt there are benefits to be gained from that - but sadly far too many such places seem to treat it as a 'box ticking' exercise simply to boost their standing/kudos.

I can recall one museum where the Board of the owning Charity has tasked their Curator to obtain accreditation as his "No 1 priority". This chap was in charge of a museum where, one day, an (over)enthusiastic volunteer (probably with nothing else to do with his/her time) had taken all the small items out of a display cabinet, given them a good clean, and then put them back - in the wrong places. Consequently many of the exhibits now had the 'wrong' captions. I pointed this out to the volunteer on duty during my visit, who 'left a note' for the Curator. When I next visited about a year later nothing had changed :-( By chance the Curator happened to be visiting that day as well and when I asked about this, his response was to the effect that - as a volunteer - all his time was taken up with pursuing the Board's mandate about accreditation and so 'other problems' had to wait.

Another museum that I visited was managed by a Curator who, by his own admission, knew virtually nothing about railway signalling. Not a problem in itself, were it not for the fact that he had taken it upon himself to give demonstrations to visitors of various items of signalling equipment in the museum's collection. Words failed me to describe the number of misinformed howlers inflicted upon the unsuspecting public :-( When I broached this with him (as tactfully as I could, honest), his response was along the lines that basically his aim was to keep the visitors 'entertained' and as long as they left knowing more than they did before the arrived it would not matter if what they learnt was incorrect as they would never know anyway! I pointed out that, on the other hand, there would be some amongst his visitors who would know far more about his collection than he or I did and they would go away with a very poor impression and probably advise others not to bother to visit because it was such a shambles.

Of course, neither of the above examples were accredited when I visited ( and I doubt that either is yet), but my point is that I fail to see how accreditation per se would improve the situation without the proper management ethos from above.

 

Not as far as I am aware, you can set your self up as a charity if you wish, just make sure you comply with one of the charitable objectives.

Accreditation is or would be in the case of the L&BR just icing on the cake. That said, the management of the whole project would need to improve.

 

One would hope that the accreditation process would require resolution of the sort of issues you mention, as part of demonstrating that the museum in question is actually providing the education that it purports to.

 

Accreditation of a whole railway as a museum is potentially very useful as it opens up more sources of grant funding, and for a wider variety of purposes too. I noted with interest the Nene Valley Railway recently got a grant to repair a landslip because their whole railway is the museum, rather than it 'just' being in a separate building.

 

That rather makes the point about the value of accreditation! As with all such things, the important thing is the set of values it instils, rather than just trying to achieve a box ticking exercise.

An advantage of accreditation is that it makes acquisitions of new items that match the collection parameters, and inter-museum loans (and disposals) easier. It would be a shame were an item of significant L&B provenance to become available, only for it to go elsewhere because there wasn't sufficient confidence that the L&Bs own museum could offer a suitably reliable home.

I doubt it is the most important thing facing the railway, and I only really mentioned it because I think the term "museum" in a railway context too often gets applied to "a random collection of oddments that has no real coherence, relevance to place or explanation as to their function, provenance or significance".

Tom

 

Agree - though accreditation's not a silver bullet either. I can think of at least one (which obviously I'm not going to name) that fits your description well and features on the above list of accredited railway museums....