As I promised I spent a couple of hours yesterday photographing the maritime museum and the Cervia. The first batch of pictures are of the Maritime Museum, considerable problems with reflection as like most museums a lot of the exhibits are behind glass, anyway I did my best to record the museum as it is now.As far as I can see things with the museum could go one of two ways. Either the council will fail to grant the museum sufficient security of tenure to obtain grant funding and it will close. Or the museum will be granted a lease on The Clock House and the first thing they will do will be to expand the museum into the parts of the building that are not used for anything much, so either way I won’t be the same again.
Anyway here are the pictures, taken yesterday.
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id9.htm
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id10.htm
We had a very similar situation with Ramsgate Motor Museum, the council made promises of support and then broke them, I think the final straw there was the council moving the bucket and spade run to Margate, of course now the museum has closed they have moved it back to Ramsgate. The owners then removed all of the exhibits and since then a large council owned building has remained empty. Before the Motor Museum closed I wrote their website for the museum, I am afraid at the time digital cameras were not what they are today so the pictures of the exhibits are rather small, click on the link to see what we lost http://www.thanetonline.com/RamsgateMotorMuseum
There is a ghastly irony here that the council are spending £2m on a heritage project in Margate, when people of Ramsgate are asking to be allowed to keep their last remaining museum.
It would seem from experience that the council’s most likely agenda here, is to have another iconic Ramsgate building empty for years, progressively becoming more derelict.
This link takes you to a few pictures round Ramsgate taken yesterday and this morning, they got a bit muddled up but the point here is how busy Ramsgate is in the area around the museum, and how much having it open with events on there enhances the town’s economy http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id11.htm
Opening the museum will hopefully embarrass the council into granting sufficent security of tenure.
ReplyDeleteDo you know if they are opening again on Weds for the Dunkirk celebrations?
Michael, well done they are excellent photographs. I did exactly the same at the Margate Museum before it closed.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the East India cabinet is a bit thinned out. The items recovered from the "Albion" are not in there.It could be they were loans as when the museums closed most of the loans were returned.
If the Margate Museum doors are ever to reopen it could prove interesting when comparing before and after photographs.
ReplyDeleteRVM I think so, it says they are on some things but not others, the other question hanging in the air at the moment is will the Sundowner be going to Dunkirk?
ReplyDeleteTony, are your pictures of Margate Museum published online? If not I would be happy to publish them for you.
I know some people who had donated things took them back after the museum’s various closures.
I certainly think that publicly available pictures of the collections are a good idea all round.
Yes that's fine Michael, but I have to find them first.
ReplyDeletei do hope they have public liability insurance
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately TDC wouldn't know culture if it bit them on the bum.
ReplyDeleteThey now how to waste money just look at the empty business parks they have poured thousands into.
Ramsgate didn't get the power boats last year because the money was syphoned off for the air show, It is all a case of colour politics and Ramsgate is the wrong colour so it gets nothing.
20.25 I believe both the tug and museum to be fully insured.
ReplyDeleteThe 'potted histories' of the model tugs at the Dunkirk Exhibition were provided by the Thames Tugs Website
ReplyDelete