8 Things we Learnt from our Pop up Museum

Whilst Buxton Museum and Art Gallery is closed for refurbishment, the staff have taken the opportunity to do something unusual. Equipped with a rather swanky gazebo and an assortment of artefacts, we have braved the single-figure temperatures and taken our “pop-up museum” out into the landscape. You may have seen us around. Our aim is to tell people a bit about the history of the Peak District and the Collections in the Landscape project. We try to draw attention to the fact that this part of the world was inhabited by brachiopods, mastodons and Romans and how its story can be told through objects. The education worked both ways and we actually learnt a few things ourselves:

Plesiosaurs are reptiles, not dinosaurs

The Peak District was not a land mass at the time of the dinosaurs but there is a piece of fossilised Plesiosaur from Dorset in Buxton Museum’s collection. However, as one clever young man was quick to point out, although these creatures flourished during the Jurassic era, they are classified as reptilian. We knew that – honest!

There were underground toilets on Buxton Market Place

Many people are interested in how the landscape has changed within their own lifetime. When we popped-up at the Buxton market, we exhibited a few old photographs and residents were reminded of the subterranean water closet that can be seen in this 1929 photograph by J.R. Board. More conveniences were situated at the bottom of The Slopes. Apparently, they were both filled in and tarmacked over in the 1970s.

Collections Assistant Laura Waters made a couple of observations whilst running the pop-up museum:

Keep it real

I noticed pretty quickly that people weren’t interested in replicas – so when I went with Gordon to Dovedale in half term and I had the replica coins, as soon as people realised they weren’t real they weren’t bothered about them at all: they only wanted to see and handle real stuff.

Look with your fingers

Also people really love just being able to touch things – so parents will come up telling their kids ‘do not touch anything’ or adults will come up really sheepishly assuming you can only look at things and then be amazed to discover that you can handle it all. It’s great to see how happy it makes people being able to actually get hands on with historic objects which isn’t something you get to do very often.

Events Coordinator Gordon MacLellan, aka Creeping Toad also had some revelations:

Any excuse to talk but we need to listen

Objects are good starting points, but people want to talk as much as listen to us, so we need to be ready to listen to their stories of things found, treasures lost and wonders to be discovered

Connections to immediate environment

Our handling collection largely comes from the Peak District and it helps a lot to have a good sense of just where objects have come from and to be able to talk about those sites. But where objects have come from this immediate location that generates even more reaction; or again being able to talk about artefacts found here is really good for getting people talking and looking beyond the walls of our pop-up museum; being specific helps.

Have something to do: Mix standing and chatting with an activity

We have drawn huge pictures on long rolls of paper, made boxes to keep personal treasures in, given out clipboards and invited people to go drawings; keep everything active -not everyone will participate but the opportunity is valued

Enjoy the opportunity

Relax, let go of worries about other work not being done and just enjoy meeting people and sharing these fascinating artefacts….

Keep an eye on our website for more events. If you spot our pop-up museum when you’re out and about, come and say hello and tell us something we don’t know!

Dovedale Family Trail

On Saturday 15^th March we took to Dovedale to test our new Dovedale Family Trail. It was a windy start but the weather held and we had a lovely day. Myself and Anna were joined by Martha Henson, who has been working with us on all of the Buxton Museum apps.

  

As I have mentioned before, Dovedale posed a different set of problems than the other sites. For starters, there is no mobile signal. We got around this by creating the trail as a pdf that can either be downloaded to a device or printed in advance. There is also a simple web-version available on the Buxton Museum apps site. On the test day we all used printed copies and, although low-tech, everyone thought it worked well and preferred it to a screen-based activity. The paper copy meant families were sharing, ticking things off and writing things down, and not worried about breaking anything.

 

Everyone seemed to use the trail as a good info sheet and ideas for activities, but several families told us they weren’t always clear where they were. For instance, Lover’s Leap is a great place to stop and have a breather (especially as you’ve just hiked up the hill to get there!) but there aren’t any signs to tell you where you are. Some of our location choices for activities also seemed crazy once we were there. At the Stepping Stones we ask people to ‘Look at the fossils below your feet’, but this location is far too busy for anything else than crossing the river.

Reynard’s Cave was everyone’s favourite spot on the tour (staff favourite too!). We do not encourage people to climb up the slope to the cave itself because the climb is steep and dangerous, however, most families on the event did. Lots of objects have been found in Reynard’s cave, from Roman pottery to animal bones, making it a collection highlight too. One family liked that they could connect visiting the cave, and Dovedale, to objects we have in the museum and said it would make their next museum visit more relevant.

Walking back was the hardest part, even though we knew we had lunch at the end of it! Like many of the families, I would prefer a circular walk of Dovedale and we are looking into the options. We had some great suggestions on how to develop the activity. Could we turn it into an orienteering challenge? Or perhaps run it as a regular group event? If you have tried the activity on your own we would also love to hear your thoughts. Until May 31^st we are offering a small prize to anyone who completes the Dovedale trail and fills in our online survey. Prizes can be collected from the museum.