The
next time you land or change planes at Heathrow airport you will stand on the
place where Julius Caesar set up camp on his invasion of Britain in 53BC. Its
little gems like that which make this such a remarkable museum. To bring off
2,000 years of London history takes some doing but this museum achieves it in
spectacular fashion. My advice to any visitor to London is to come here first.
After that, when you wander the streets, everything around you will slide into
context.
To reach it takes
the circle/district/metropolitan line to Barbican. Then follow the signs of
Dick Whittington and his cat out of the tube station and across the overpass.
The Museum is part of the Barbican brutalist arts complex - one of the largest
in Europe. Notoriously difficult to find your way round this can start as a pre
or post museum stop and is the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company. If you
can snap up tickets (£10-30) you will not regret it as it is one of the best
theatre companies in the world.
The museum does
free tours and these are worth taking up. The first section is prehistory
including a disturbing picture of the Thames valley imagining if London never
existed. Then the Roman section which cannily incorporates the museum design so
that you can look down on a fragment of London’s Roman wall. The Celts, Danes,
Saxons, Normans and Vikings all whoosh by and there are some fantastic
reconstructed models of medieval buildings that are no longer with us. Such as
Old London Bridge which was lined with houses, taverns and brothels. What a
shame that they hadn't survived to this day.
The Tudors were
next with great portraits of Henry VIII. Did you know that the man had not one
but fifty three palaces dotted around London with only St James, Hampton Court
and Lambeth still surviving? London looked rather green and suburban in those
days and the great fire of London was shown in a rather tame diorama narrated
by Samuel Pepys. The fire destroyed most of the old medieval/Tudor city and
plans were drawn up by Sir Christopher Wren to reconstruct London along baroque
lines to make it as grand as Rome or Vienna. But they returned to the old
medieval street plan and it was not to be. Shame really.
The final
section of the museum had some stunners. The highlight has to be the gilt
covered Lord Mayors coach. But also on show are 17th century court ladies
costumes, a door from the septic Newgate prison, and the original art-deco lift
from Selfridge’s department store. The museum finally winds up in the London
Now! exhibit showing life in the 21st century. It explores the role of
multi-ethnic London and celebrates the cities diversity. The Indian Tandoori
restaurant is just as much part of London as Oliver Twist or Geoffry Chaucer.
And after visiting this lively museum you may think the same....
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