What's Is Free And What's Not At Museums And Why?

Problem
The museum is advertised as free. But when you get there they are charging for exhibitions. Why? And what's all this timed entry for?

Answers
Sometimes a rich person or a keen collector leaves their collection of art or objects to the local school or council or the entire country, stupulating that it must be free for all to see.

So far, so good. However, to display works of art or museum objects you need two things, a building with a repair fund, and payments staff. If the museum then attracts other donations, the museum is in a fix. Can they really way, we have two rooms each with space for ten paintings, we already have ten Rembrandts and Ten Van Goghs, what's more people don't want them in the same room, so we don't want your painting.

What can they do? Put out the popular paitnings and keep the othersstacked  downstairs in the basement in storage and hope the buildings won't flood and the paintings won't get stolen without anybody realising the box is empty, or lost or forgotten.

Open another branch museum in another city. Send the piantings off around the world on a tour, charging the recipient museums and countries fees high enough to cover the transport and insurance and travel escorts, and packing and unpacking, and policing on arrival and crowd control.

This has risks but also advantages. Poeple get to hear about your museum. the basement is temporarily cleared of clutter. You can generate income to pay for your staff and increasing updating your home museum or gallery's facilities which never used to be there.

For example, such as self-flushing toilets, security cameras, touch screens to answer visitor questions, guided tours on hand-held devices. What else? Ramps for the disabled, fire exits and fire doors and maybe sprinklers and connections to the police or fire service to comply with new regulations. Modern security may require bag searches and lockers for backpacks. More toilets, self-flushing, hand driers, replacing broken seats and hooks. Building - overhaul of leaking roofs and rising damp. More restaurants and a bigger gift shop to cope with and conveneience the increasing number of visitors. Regular cleaning. Organising events to attract the donors and Friends Of The Museum. training museum guides. Updating captions. Adding direction signs.

At the Horniman museum in London somebody working for the golf area (crazy golf I think) said that the golf there in the summer served a dual purpose. It entertained and attracted visitors.  He didn't say but it just occured to me, the extra outdoor activity kept down the numbers indoors reducing overcrowding. The outdoors attraction, kept some of the excitedly shrieking small children away from disturbing museum visitors. Families and community minded people would be glad children and adults and grandparents could walk or run around in fresh air and get vital vitamin D. The cash could help fund the constant drain on funds by the main museum which needs upkeep and staffing and ever increasing acitivities nowadays, such as marketing and printing.

With public libararies and swimming pools and minor museum in London and all over the UK threatened with closure or already closed, you realise that keeping a free museum free running and serving the entire community requires effort and money.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

See Old England and New England At Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Dulwich Art Gallery and Dulwich school are related. A rich actor had the school built and left it his art collection. Along came another wealthy actor. He and his business partner were collecting Rembrandts and other famous paintings for a king who abdicated. They left their art which eventually found its way here.

The building itself is extraordinary. They were running short of money but planned to have the benefactors buried in the building. The wife was to be buried alongside her husband, so she found the money needed to complete the project. In the middle of the art gallery is the mausoleum to the two rich art collectors and the wife. Their pictures are in the gallery outside.

Their friend was architect John Soane (who has his own gallery elsewhere in London, and who left his money to look after orphans). His design for the art gallery, with overhead decorative ceiling windows to provide lighting (a bit like some churches), was novel at the time and is now copied by art galleries and other buildings worldwide.

Practical Details For you
Getting There
Take the train from Victoria station, Southern Line, to West Dulwich station. Walk out of the station following the signposts. Other routes on their information leaflets and website.

The gallery has a well-stocked gift shop full of items to delight anybody the least bit artistic, everything from tying scarves to painting techniques. Outside in a modern building you will find the toilets and a café serving lunch opposite.

Details of the current exhibition on Edward Bawden, running until Sept 9 2018, in the next post.
Check ticket and concession prices. You can book online.

Useful websites
dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Photos will be added shortly.

Watch The Animated Model of cars, carousels, turning trees, trains and trucks at Marina Bay Sands, Plus People Watching

Problem
Where is it?

Answer
Outside the gift shop of Tower Three in Marina Bay Sands. An animated display in a glass cube showing many moving objects, carousels, cars, trains and trucks. An amusement for children and adults alike.

Another entertainment is people watching. Many pairs. 

1 Two Japanese girls with long black hair and shopping bags. 

2 Two women who might be twins wearing horizontal black and white stripes. 

3 Two Singaporeans, a boy and a girl, with matching pink hair.

Couple with pink hair and pink fringes, at Marina Bay Sands. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer.

Highlights of The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, (near Alfreton), Derbyshire DE55 1AU

I enjoyed a delightful week on a Writers' Summer School at The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Derbyshire - what a delightful setting for talks and walks. At breakfast time I discovered that although our conference had more than a hundred members and seemed to occupy the whole building, including the three accommodation areas of the main house, the ABC and Lakeside, The Hayes was still open to the public for bed and breakfast. I learned from the bed and breakfast guests, who were walking and sightseeing in Derbyshire, that they knew of The Hayes from staying at the management's other properties. All three are properties are open for conferences.

The Hayes - back lawn and colourful flowerbeds 

The Hayes - Lawn and Flowerbeds 

(The green gabled roof far left is The Vinery, a glass walled area where you can sit and drink your coffee or tea when on a conference. The Vinery's interior is pictured below.

The Vinery

Great place to sit drinking a glass of water, or alcoholic drinks you can buy from the licensed bar at lunchtime, before dinner and in the evenings.

Magnificent fir trees

Walks
In fine weather you can stroll past the field of cows down to the lake. I was on a conference and one of our members ran a meditation group in the monrings by the lake. On one wet day although it was raining it was wet underfoot and some people had brought mats to sit on so she moved the group indoors into the Lakeside accommodation's Tissington Room off the front hall.

A previous year I walked up the sloping path behind the furthest car park and downhill through the trees.

Gift Shop
The Hayes gift shop is open during conferences at the morning coffee break for you to buy postcards, books of first class postage stamps, religious books for adults and bible stories for children, key rings, and assorted knickknacks - my favourite being the wooden button boxes in the shape of a button on a cylindrical base - prices from about £5-10 according to size.


Accommodation and toilets
The bathrooms and toilets have been upgraded since last year. a member of staff told me that this is an ongoing process. Like painting the Forth Bridge, when you finish decorating at one end it's time for your team to go back and start repainting at the other end.
   In the ladies' toilets I liked the wall covering which looked like tiles but was a clever imitation. All in one piece, wallpaper style. The advantage is that its easier to clean. The white 'grout' stays white. Quick to install or replace.

Bathrooms' Ensuite Shower Curtain Magnets

In the bathrooms I was entranced by the shower curtains which snapped together with nifty magnets at the bottom corners. (I looked up and saw the top corners also had top magnets so ensure a dry floor as well as total privacy. But those of you who have watched Hitchcock films may wish to leave eye level open to watch out for approaching strangers!)

Here's the magnet sewn into the seam of the shower curtain, clasping its twin from the other curtain of the pair. What a great idea! You might have shower curtains or bath curtains which could do with this trick. 

If you don't have shower curtains, what about bedroom curtains? If you have bedroom curtain which you struggle to close every night, magnets can be sewn at the bottom of both curtains of the pair. Or on the outside edge of a curtain to match one stuck on a wall. Then another at the top where the two curtains meet. 

But you want your bedroom curtains overlapping? Just sew the second magnet an inch or two further along.

The toilet brush attached to the lid.

I particularly liked another feature, the toilet brush attached to the toilet holder lid. Only two pieces instead of three, less to go missing, fall apart. Very neat.

You could easily be so busy with walking and sightseeing or seeing your friends, or family, that you might miss the games room. If it's too wet to go out, or too late and dark, you can have a game of indoor table tennis.

To all the friends I see at the annual Writers' Summer School - see you next year.

More details from:

The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, (near Alfreton), Derbyshire DE55 1AU
Tel:+44 0300 111 4444

http://www.cct.org.uk/the-hayes/introduction

(Loading about four pictures and text on the Writers' Summer School Courses and Entertainment to my next post today Monday Aug 18 or tomorrow - come back for more.)