Museums in Ireland/Scotland?

In article , Jon Anderson writes

Near Belfast; Transport Museum at Cultra;

Sounds like a grand plan, Jon. Don't forget to check out Hogwarts when you get to Scotland. ;)

Maybe check out some of the books on the Industrial Revolution centering on those 2 countries to get a better idea of who did what where, then look for history following them. Got a good library down there?

I'd avoid London if at all humanly possible, if you're touring England, too. (Beirut is probably safer nowadays.)

Yeah, thanks, found those readily. Should have been more specific I see. Was hoping for personal recommendations. There's only a couple that look to maybe have good manufacturing exhibits. That topic is on my list, there's plenty of topics of interest to both of us. Don't want to spend couple hours driving to a museum of interest to me and be disappointed.

For instance, the National Museum of Scotland has a rather bland description of displays. Saw a post in a FB group that showed there's some interesting displays of early manufacturing machinery/tooling.

Jon

Thanks for that!

Jon

Game of Thrones tour, couple other sites TBD, then Scotland, where wife's family came from.

Got a library... It's at least a year out, plenty of time for research.

Can fly direct to Edinburgh, no desire to visit London, though there are lots of interesting sights to see.

Jon

London is good but I only do it in small doses, you have the benefit of the Science Museum, the V&A and the Natural history Museum and others. I can only do about 3 or 4 galleries in the V&A before my mind is overwhelmed by all the beautiful objects. Maybe consider posting on uk.rec.models.engineering for more local knowledge.

This map links to a series of articles on lesser-known sites of technical interest;

I posted the catalogs because somone who visited in person may not remember the name or location. For years I confused Schloss Hohenzollern which I visited with Schloss Sigmaringen that I didn't.

One of my favorite London museums was the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, now called the London Museum of Water and Steam. I used to like the Science Museum. It had a very large model ship floor, plus a fantastic mill engine on the main floor. Lots of other early steam, too. It may have been "curated" since my first visit. Last time it was closed for renovations.

The Tower was great the first time, huge collections on display. The last visit, it had been "curated" too, most of the really interesting stuff hidden away, and more or less a narration they wanted visitors to follow.

The Imperial War Museum was a good one. Enigma machine on display, captured German stuff, etc.

I also liked the Greenwich Royal Observatory with the first chronometers. My youngest son was pissed when we looked at the prime meridian and he finally snapped to what it meant. I used to listen to "Station WWV, Fort Collins Colorado" to get the time, and snickered about "Universal Coordinated Time". I began always calling it "Intergalactic Space Cadet Time". For years, he thought that was the real name.

Pete Keillor

Thanks Pete,

Due to budget constraints, will have to pass through London w/overnight stay, so will see if we can get to any of these.

Jon

I'm with you on Kew Bridge; if you are interested in aviation, Hendon is worth a couple or more days. It has bee 13 years though so things may have changed.