Gloucester History

Our last day in Gloucester we visited the Gloucester History museum which is literally a two-minute walk from the flat. (image courtesy of Wikipedia - we didn't have sun.)

It's quite small and is aimed primarily at children, with lots of dress-up trunks and dinosaur-themed activities.

There were cases of artifacts of prehistoric people

and many displays about the Roman settlements in Gloucester.

I loved these face pots!

After the Romans came the Saxons. An interesting relic in the museum is the remains of a Saxon game which looks very much like backgammon.

I was happy to see that the museum talked about some of the Queens of the Saxon times, including Aethelflaed of Mercia who lead her troops into battle against the Vikings.

There were relics from the medieval period

and a series of photographs of Gloucester in the 20th century.

Upstairs the museum was a bit of a work of art in itself, with beautiful soaring ceilings.

There was case after case of objects dating hundreds of years back, most of which were all-but-impossible to photograph due to the glare on the cases.

The museum owns an impressive collection of clocks and watches, many of which were made in Gloucester.

In a separate gallery the Royal Photographic Society was hosting "International Photography Exhibition 165" the world's longest running photographic exhibition, held since 1864. I found it pretty surprising that the exhibition would be in an out-of-the-way room in an out-of-the-way museum, but who am I to question it?

Here were a couple of my favorites.

Unsung by Olufemi Olaiya:

Part of the Series "Unattainable Beauty" by Natalie Strohmeier:

The Beck Brothers by Joseph P Smith:

Bruce went off to crawl and I wandered about town, enjoying the old buildings and the occasional laugh, courtesy of the locals.