Royal Academy of Music Museum

Visit the Royal Academy of Music Museum to explore unique instruments, manuscripts and art, and discover behind-the-scenes stories from the United Kingdom’s oldest conservatoire.

In permanent galleries and temporary displays, visitors will see star items such as the ‘Viotti ex-Bruce’ 1709 violin by Antonio Stradivari once played to Queen Marie Antoinette, Gilbert and Sullivan’s original score for ‘The Mikado’, and a Viennese piano from 1815 with six pedals. You can learn about the role the Academy and its alumni have played in musical development for nearly 200 years, and perhaps hear a live gallery demonstration of a clavichord or a 19th century piano.

Our friendly Gallery Assistants are Academy students who will tell you more about the displays and talk about their studies at the Academy. The Museum regularly holds free public musical and lecture events, museum tours, and offers children’s trails with quizzes and puzzles.

Cartoon Museum

In 1988 a group of cartoonists, collectors and lovers of the art form came together as The Cartoon Art Trust with the aim of founding a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, promoting and preserving the best of British cartoon art. After a decade of exhibiting in smaller venues, in February 2006 the Cartoon Museum opened to the public at its current home in central London, very near the British Museum.

The museum has three main galleries displaying original artwork from British cartoons and comics, past and present. Temporary exhibitions since 2006 have featured Private Eye, William Heath Robinson, Steve Bell, Giles, Pont, H.M. Bateman, Viz Comic, Ronald Searle, The Beano, Ralph Steadman and many other luminaries. At the heart of the museum lies its growing collection of cartoons, caricatures and pages of comic-strip art. The foundations of modern British political and social cartooning can be found in works by Hogarth – whose social satires are regarded by many as the foundation of the British cartoon tradition, James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson. The permanent collection also includes works by a number of fine Victorian cartoonists including John Leech, George Cruikshank, George Du Maurier and John Tenniel. William Heath Robinson – whose name is synonymous with outlandish and hilarious contraptions – hangs with his contemporary, H.M. Bateman, two of the most successful cartoonists of the first half of the 20^th century. Also featured in the permanent collection are Pont, Gerald Scarfe, Ronald Searle, Giles, Martin Rowson, Steve Bell and a host of favourites from newspapers and magazines.

Our upstairs gallery displays original artwork by some of the founding fathers of British comics, such as David Law (Dennis the Menace, Beryl the Peril), Leo Baxendale (Bash St. Kids, Minnie the Minx), and Frank Hampson (Dan Dare), alongside work by Posy Simmonds, Sarah MacIntyre, Nick Abadzis, and the final page of Alan Moore & David Lloyd’s seminal V for Vendetta. From the US, there are originals by Garry Trudeau and Charles Schulz.

The museum runs events and workshops for schools & colleges, families, children and adults. The classroom can be booked for children’s birthday workshops, and the whole museum can be hired to host special events for businesses and social groups. There is also a library of 5,000 books on comics and cartoons which is available for research purposes by appointment.

The Cartoon Museum Shop stocks more than 900 books on the history of cartoons and comic-strips, graphic novels and children’s books, and a wide range of cards, posters, prints and cartoon-related novelty gifts.

National Museum of Rural Life

Discover how 300 years of farming and rural home life have shaped and altered Scotland’s countryside. Tour the period farmhouse for a sense of what living on a farm was really like more than 50 years ago, and meet the animals on the historic working farm: Ayrshire cows, Tamworth pigs, Scots dumpy hens, black-faced sheep and Clydesdale horses.

Lincolnshire Road Transport Museum

Our Museum includes a variety of items large and small connected to road transport in the area, as well as a number of items of street furniture from the eras our vehicles were an everyday sight on the County’s streets.

There are also displays of small artefacts, model vehicles, and displays with information, photographs and posters from the past – these are changed regularly.

Leadhills Miners Library

Leadhills Miner’s Library is the oldest subscription library in the British Isles. The Liverpool Subscription Library, the first in England was not founded until 1758. The second oldest library being in Wanlockhead our neighboring village.

Of the 23 founder members at Leadhills all were miners except for the minister and the schoolmaster.

The early books were mainly religious in character and included;

Scougal…’Life of God in the Soul of Man’
Grotius…’Truth of the Christian Religion’
Du Pin’s…’History of the Church’
Burnet’s…’Thirty-nine Articles’
Matthew Hendry’s…Communicant’s Companion’
and many volumes of sermons.

Many of the volumes acquired in the first century of the library’s life are still extant, and the miners deserve credit for tackling such reading after a hard shift underground or at the smelting mills. The considerable sums, noted in the Minute Books, spent on repairs and rebinding show that the books really were read, and were not merely status symbols.

Members included a number of celebrated men. William Symington, mining engineer of Leadhills and inventor of the paddle steamer and steam pumping engines. Dr. John Brown, the Edinburgh author of ‘Rab and his Friends’ both belonged to the library.

The Library used to be named after Allan Ramsay. This refers to Allan Ramsay the elder, poet and auther of ‘The Gentle Shepherd’. He was born in Leadhills in 1686, the son of Robert Ramsay, the mine manager. While there is nothing to link him to the library other than he was an author and poet, there may be a connection, but, having not found one we decided to revert back to the original name of ‘The Leadhills Reading Society’.

Allan Ramsay had already, in 1725, established a circulating library in the Luckenbooths area of Edinburgh, and no doubt this idea was heard of in his native village. Allan Ramsay was the son of Robert Ramsay and Alice Bowes. Robert was the son of another Robert Ramsay, also a mine manager at Leadhills, and Alice Bowes was the daughter of a Derbyshire man who had been brought to Leadhills to teach the miners there, Allans father was cut off at 25 leaving no provision for his family. Allan was apprenticed to a wigmaker in Edinburgh, and lived there the rest of his life. He never forgot Leadhills and the influence of its moorland scenery is easy to trace in his poetry.

Today the library contains various relics of the past life in the village and the mines, as well as the book collection. A mineral collection is on display showing rare minerals unique to this area including one of ‘Leadhillsite’

Renfrew Museum

Built in 2012, Renfrew Museum is a 4 star-awarded visitor attraction. Small, but perfectly formed, visitors will be treated to a truly rich and interactive experience as the story of the former Royal Burgh of Renfrew is presented from medieval times until the present day, using objects, pictures, film and audio. The museum is based on the elements of Earth, Fire, Air and Water.

Earth

This section looks at life in Renfrew over the centuries. Renfrew is known as the Cradle of The Stewarts because of its important historic royal connections. Images over the last 150 years including shops, houses and street scenes show how the town has changed over that time.

Fire

This part of the museum focuses on the heavy industries in the area, such as boiler making at Babcocks, who were at one time, the largest boiler making factory in the world.

Air

This section shows the importance of Renfrew Airport both locally and in aviation history. Visitors can see a real Merlin engine from a Spitfire fighter built at Hillington.

Water

The town’s position on the River Clyde made Renfrew an important ship building centre producing ships which were exported all over the world.

Come and learn more about the incredible contribution Renfrew has made across the world, and see how the local community, including Renfrew’s young people, contribute to making it the town it is today.

Skara Brae Visitor Centre

This stunning archaeological site on the shores of the bay of Skaill is reputed to be the best preserved Stone Age village in Europe. It is one of Orkney’s most popular attractions. Prepare to be amazed!

Sitting proudly within the Heart of Neolithic Orkney UNESCO World Heritage Site, Skara Brae is accorded the same status as the pyramids in Egypt. However, the village is in fact much older, dating from 3200BC compared to 2700BC when the building of the pyramids began.

Melrose Abbey Commendatorʼs House Museum

Discover a place so beloved by Robert the Bruce, he chose it as the final resting place for his heart. Melrose Abbey is a magnificent ruin on a grand scale, and it was a highly desirable place to be buried.

David I founded Scotland’s first Cistercian monastery in 1136. Being so close to the border, Melrose Abbey suffered at English hands during the Middle Ages. Rebuilt in the 1380s, it was used as an abbey until the Protestant Reformation of 1560. Afterwards, the existing monks were allowed to stay on: the last died in 1590.

What to see and do

• Admire the graceful architecture of the abbey church, among Britain’s finest church architecture of the late 1300s
• Take in the charming sculpture – look out for the famous bagpipe-playing Melrose pig
• Step inside the chapter house, where a heart believed to be that of Robert the Bruce is buried
• Visit the Commendator’s House Museum to see a rich collection of medieval objects found in the abbey cloister

Royal Academy of Arts

World-class exhibitions

Variety, excellence and originality

London Fire Brigade Museum

The London Fire Brigade pop-up museum provides our visitors a unique opportunity to find out more about the history of the Brigade. This exhibition explores key events which connect the Lambeth site to the history and development of London’s fire service. Visitors have a rare chance to glimpse a select part of the Brigade’s fascinating collection of objects, photographs, documents and videos. Visitors can also view our display of two modern fire engines and all of the equipment a modern firefighter uses to help make London a safer city.

The pop-up museum has been designed to give visitors a taste of what our new permanent home will look like. This is just the start of a very special move for the museum, as 8 Albert Embankment was the original home of the collection before it moved to Southwark; the museum is coming home.

If you are planning a visit, please allow for 30 minutes to see all of the exhibits on display. Throughout 2017, we are planning to host a number of lectures, tours and events at The Workshop. If you would like to know more then please join our mailing list here