Long-time London resident and avid museum and theatre-goer. I started this blog in 2014, and got serious about it in 2020 when I realised how much I missed arts and culture during lockdowns. I go to a lot more events than anyone would think is sensible, and love sharing my thoughts in the forms of reviews, the occasional thought piece, and travel recommendations when I leave my London HQ.
I took my first trip to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds last weekend. Opened in 1996, it is an overspill of the National Collection of Arms and Armour, not all of which can be housed in the Tower of London or other sites. Looking into the history of the museum since my visit, I’ve learned that the previous interpretation programme, which used live presentations to bring to life the permanent displays, has been cut back due to funding. This seems a real shame: the buildings can be difficult to navigate, and there is so much potential to breathe life into what are often children’s favourite things (knights, sieges, jousting, soldiers…), that I would have liked to have seen it in its heyday. They used to have horses and stable staff too…
Nonetheless it’s an interesting place: mostly traditional museum layout and interpretation, with a few really fascinating items, and the ambition to try to cover many countries, periods and topics. A few pictures from my trip below!
Making our way towards the main staircase, this traditional display of weaponry was quite striking
This one’s just in here for fun, because I thought the stalking horse was cute. Medieval/Renaissance cover for hunters to get close to prey.
The layout of the galleries is slightly confusing, and we had to backtrack once or twice. The symbols painted around gallery entrances did help as a quick reference.
Little do those families realise there’s a fight to the death going on up above between an elephant and a tiger… Quite a lot of use of models and dioramas in the museum, some to good effect, at least for children.
Working through the museum top to bottom. In the Oriental Gallery, some architectural nods to subject matter were apparent.
Second elephant of the day already, this one in its finery in the Oriental Gallery. The information panel managed to succinctly explain the use of the armour, its importance as an artefact, and its entry into the collection.
Some displays were relatively unexplained. I’m not sure why the museum has veered off so much from arms, armour and warfare at this point, for example.
The displays showing how different weapons or pieces of armour were produced was not groundbreaking, but fairly interesting.
Adjacent to the Oriental Gallery is a display on forensics in the Self Defence Gallery. Quite text heavy and again not groundbreaking, but I did find things like exploded ballistics materials very interesting.
Also up in Self Defence were windows drawing parallels between some of the historic items on view, and modern versions like sports equipment and police armour. I found this quite effective in making the historic collections relatable, although it could also have been incorporated directly in to some of the other galleries to make this point even clearer.
Very nice vistas between galleries!
Through now to the Hunting Gallery. Everyone loves a vampire kit, right? Quite good commentary here on ‘real’ vs. ‘fake’ artefacts, and what each can tell us in a museum setting.
Amid important educational displays on things like the CITES convention and weaponry, I liked this room which put ornamental hunting displays back into their original context.
A bit of corporate sponsorship downstairs in the War Gallery.
Nothing if not historically ambitious in here, although the bulk of the displays once out in the main gallery are medieval or later.
I liked the curtain of arrows overhead – as well as bringing a bit of visual interest it gave the displays a sense of menace by reminding the audience of the purpose of all of these items outside a musealised context.
The War Gallery finishes on a note of peace in what looks like quite a positive museum collaboration.
A view of some of the items on loan from the Peace Museum in Bradford.
And then a quick aside with a spotlight on Waterloo.
Although we were a bit late arriving on a Saturday afternoon, it seems like the Royal Armouries have an active education/engagement/activity programme
One of the biggest strengths for me in their use of space was the visual coding of different galleries from the outside.
There were a series of these interactives in the Tournament Gallery: simple but effective.
I was quite intrigued by this space: I imagine it’s for more education/displays
What a gent! Again this one’s just in here for fun.
Well-presented displays in this section which gave a strong sense of time and place.
I lost a £5 bet on this. When we saw this outside as the symbol of the museum I made up a narrative where it was a hybrid between Vikings and armour, looking to the past and future… No, turns out it belonged to Henry VIII. Don’t over-complicate things, guys.
