Top Twelve Strangest Museums in London - A Guided Tour
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- Опубликовано: 7 авг 2024
- Looking for more strange museum videos? Watch my video about The Strangest Objects in the Victoria and Albert Museum next. • The Strangest Objects ...
In this video, Jessica the Museum Guide (that’s me!) takes you on a detailed walk through the twelve strangest museums in London. Expect medical oddities, psychedelic neon, bizarre houses, and unbelievable collections, many of them free to visit. We're spoiled with weird and wonderful museums in London!
Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Leave a comment and tell me about the strangest museum you’ve ever visited.
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0:00 - Introduction to the tour
0:25 God’s Own Junkyard
1:53 Anaesthesia Heritage Centre
2:59 Kirkaldy Testing Centre
4:54 Bedlam Hospital Museum
7:18 Grant Museum of Zoology
8:53 Museum of Freemasonry
10:13 The Magic Circle Museum
11:23 House of Dreams
13:12 Novelty Automation
14:18 The Old Operating Theatre
16:36 Dennis Severs House
19:33 Viktor Wynd's Cabinet of Curiosities
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Photos of the House of Dreams attributed to Stephen Wright. Photos of Dennis Severs House attributed to the Dennis Severe House.
Yes, please! A whole episode for each museum and 1 for the oddest articles, please!
I'll get started!
Your videos are making me miss travel so much. Not a museum, but when I was in Edinburgh a few years ago (7ish, I think?) I was walking in the old city with a friend and she was showing me some of the courtyards that had been converted to homes from originally being stable-yards (we think). We went into one courtyard and saw an older woman doing some sort of dye-craft. We stopped to talk to her about it and she invited us inside -- and WOW -- nearly every surface of her home was covered in artwork! Mostly painted in flowers and scroll work, but so much more. I think we must have spent over an hour chatting with her and looking at all her art. It was incredible.
That sounds absolutely magical.
Yes please more on the old operating theater and pre-anesthesia surgery! I just discovered your channel and I’m loving it. ❤
Thank you for watching!
You are really terrific! Thank you.
Gotta say you got an excellent voice for narration. Keeps you listening for sure.
Thank you so much, Carrie!
When I was about 13 - 14 years old I was sent by my parents to stay with my much older brother who was a student at the london hospital in whitechapel. He collected me from Liverpool street station and we went back to the hospital as he had a lecture he needed to attend. He left me in this place they called a medical Library, well library is not the word I would use. This part of the building contained many hundreds of human body parts, some were just organs and some were exhibits like head neatly sawn down the middle ( to me at that age it was bizzarly creepy yet fascinating ) My overiding memory of this though was getting to meet John Merrick aka the Elephant man whose skeleton along with others with unfortunate medical conditions were on display. I dont know if this place still exists with all the development over the 40 odd years but just thought it really should be open to the general public if it does. Love your videos 👍
It did exist until about 5 years ago! It is temporarily shut, but I am not sure if it will include Merrick's bones when it reopens.
Yes please! Best museum ever! Show the spiral staircase to get up and all of the instruments. The Butchering Art is a great book on this topic btw (Lindsey Fitzharris)!
This will be my next video! Lindsey is a friend of mine. :)
I would love to see more of these wild and wonderful museums! And yes please all things medical including, and especially, Victorian surgery :) I'm an Ex hospital trained nurse and find medical museums fascinating. Also yes to Victor Wynds museum, bizarre!
A surgery video is in the works! I will wait until The Hunterian reopens. :)
I’d love to see strangest things in London museums! I loved this video! Thank you so much!!!❤
You're very welcome!
Yes to all suggested videos! I always love whatever you put up. I’m a big fan of Dennis Sever’s House. It’s definitely worth doing the candlelight tour when it’s all decorated for Christmas.
Also adding God’s Own Junkyard and the House of Dreams to my ‘to visit’ list - it makes my maximalist heart happy 😂
Great video thank you! I'm always looking for hidden gems in London.
Lil factoid for you-- Kirkaldy is actually pronounced "Kirkoddy" with the L being silent.
My grandfather was Scottish from the town Kircaldy in Fife and its always pronounced 'Kirkoddy'
🙂
I think that might be down to accent, but thank you! He was so fascinating.
Thanks! 🖤
My daughter and I plan to visit the Mutter Museum in Philly, PA one of the times I visit at school. Can’t wait!
These museums are great!! If I ever get the chance to skip across the pond, places as you highlighted in this video will be on the must visit list!
I've wanted to go to the Mutter for so long!
Yes please, Love the oddest in any collection & Anesthesia has always been a personal fascination of mine...
It’s such a strange little museum.
So excited for a Viktor Wynd tour!! I’ve been meaning to go but never have time to when I’m in London (which is only once every few years). Love your videos so much!!
You should!
Extraordinary! I had no idea these museums existed! 😲 A superb collection…thank you my dear 😊😊😊👍👍
Glad you enjoyed! I’m happy to shed light on lesser known museums.
A longer video on The Old Operating Theater, and a video on Victorian Surgery? Both, Yes Please!
They’re on the list! Thanks for watching.
Would love a video just on that zoology museum. I'm a zoologist and taxidermist in USA and can't get enough of it
Check out my video about the Strange Museums in Paris- lots of taxidermy!
Great video. I would love a video on Victorian medical practices. When I see that operating room, all I can think about is Peter Cushing as Dr. Knox giving an anatomy lecture. The Flesh and The Fiends is a movie starring Cushing, that is about Burke & Hare. It's a good movie. Also, I would love to see a video on the oddest items in various London museums.
I haven't seen it! But I definitely will - love Cushing.
Leaving for London tomorrow and feel so very lucky to have found your video. We are magic show addicts, esp close up. I was able to get VIP tickets for next Fri evening at The Magic Circle. Thank you so much!!!
I’m so thrilled to hear that!
Thank you for sharing with the world! You do such excellent work giving us virtual tours.
Thank you so much! That means a lot.
HEY BEAUTIFUL PERSON.
So glad I found you 😊.
It made my day.
Thanks for all your info & keep doing what you do.
Hard question but what is your favourite mooseum ever?
Love from Cornwall 😊
You’re very welcome!
My favourite museum ever is The Old Operating Theatre in London. And also The Museum of Hunting and Nature in Paris!
I went to the Museum of Freemasonry a little while back when I was just wandering around and saw a sign advertising it. Little did I know there was also a chapter meeting that day, so going between some of the rooms I had to navigate through a small crowd of Freemasons, which really made the trip quite memorable
Oh that would be cool!
Amazing videos !❤
Loved your video on museums of which I have never heard of but now intend to visit ❤️
Please do!
So good. Thank you for this fascinating tour of London's strangest museums. I would love to see more on The Old Operating Theatre and other medical sorts of things. I loved Dennis Severs House and the Anaesthesia Heritage Centre as well as Novelty Automation. The Viktor Wynd's Cabinet of Curiosities was quite fascinating as well. Perhaps one day, you can travel to The Mutter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. They certainly have some very special and bizarre specimens for all to enjoy. Perhaps you have been there previously? Thank you again, for this fascinating tour!
The Mutter Museum has been on my shortlist for many, many years! I hope to go next year.
@@TheMuseumGuide That would be the best! I would so love to see you tour The Mutter!
YES! Please, please, please, please, please do a full video on the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities! I live in my own private Museum of Curiosities called Captain Steve’s Mermaid Grotto in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I have been truly fascinated by Viktor Wynd’s wonderful museum for years! Please give us the comprehensive video of that incredible place!
Will do! Thanks so much for watching, Captain Steve! Hope to see you in Vegas one day.
Really great video...thank you🌻
You are so welcome!
It's hard to pick a single strangest museum I've been to, but there are a few that stand out. There's Fort Rinella on Malta, which was built by the British Army to house the world's biggest cannon in the 1870's. It's basically a museum devoted to a Victorian steampunk superweapon. A huge team of soldiers used steam engines to load the fort's 100-ton muzzle-loading cannon with shells that weighed as much as a small car, which could be fired up to 6 km with deadly accuracy, thanks to a team of artillerymen using charts and slide rules to calculate their trajectory.
Another favourite is Snowshill Manor in the Cotswolds, which is a medieval manor house that was bought by a very eccentric man called Charles Paget Wade in the 1920's. He was obsessed with arts, crafts, and design, and proceeded to amass a huge and varied collection of weird objects from around the world. There's a room full of musical instruments, medieval weaponry, an attic full of theatrical costumes, every sort of antique furniture, an obsessively detailed model village in the garden and a room of battling mannequins wearing samurai armour. He bought so much random stuff that the house filled up and Charles and his wife had to move into the barn when they stayed there. He left it to the National Trust when he died in the 1950's, on condition that they kept his gloriously mad collection intact.
There's also Keswick Pencil Museum in the Lake District, which is exactly what you'd expect from the name.
Yes! I tried to go to Snowshill Manor a few weeks ago, but it was closed for the season. :(
What a great collection of odd museums in London. I have only visited the Magic Circle which I agree is a real treat. Two other smaller museums in London that I really enjoyed are the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising near Portobello Rd and Sir John Sloan’s Museum. If you are looking for something truly weird to visit within the UK then I recommend The Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre in Glasgow - which is more of a museum than a theatre.
Great suggestion! Thank you for watching.
A whole episode on Viktor Wynd please! I visited there on a drunken night out earlier this year and absolutely loved it but 'd love to know more about the artefacts. I just discovered your channel and love it.
I love drunken nights at The Last Tuesday Society! It’s on the shortlist. ❤️
I was just waiting to see if you would add the curiosities museum. So glad you did, I came across it in 2016 and loved it. A lot of the photos I took there was inspiration for my final degree show in Textile Design. Thank you so much for the recommendations and this video. I never knew about God's Own Junkyard and The House of Dreams. Definitely will visit those in the future :)
I’m so glad you learned about new museums!
Do a Victor Wynd one! Yay. I like your tattoos!
Thank you!
I've just discovered your video's today and been watching them and please do continue making more of the like, your such a great host- narrator and pretty 😍 ❤
Thank you! I have a new video coming in about a week. :)
Great video
Thanks!
I live a few minutes away from a pigeon museum. Haven’t been yet but I’ll report back when I do. 😅
The story of pigeons breaks my heart. I'd love to visit!
I’d love to hear about this.
My Grandad was a lovely, quiet pigeon man, he sent homing pigeons to the French resistance with coded messages in WW2. He cried over each one who didn’t return.
@@KarmasAbutch it’s in Oklahoma City!
@@nickbenton4881 Thank you I will Google this - I love pigeons.
Coo(l)…..🐦
Mine must be the Edinburghs surgeons hall, bloody loved it xx
I’ve gotta get there!
Thanks!
Thank you!! ❤️
Im so glad you went to Dennis Severs!
The strangest "museum" (not actually a museum) I've ever seen was when I was 9 travelling with my mom and grandma in Austria. We visited many ancient churches - including one celebrating it's 1000 year birthday!! What I remember most clearly were the ones with crutches, glasses, and prosthesis hung on the walls. I was told that they were from folx who had prayed there and been healed. I'd love to know more about those stories.
Thank you, truly.
Thank you Ann!
I love Novelty Automation! So much fun!
We had a blast!
YES please do a video on Viktor Wynd museum...... I've always wanted to see the Mutter museum but it's in Pennsylvania here in America
13:12 Novelty Automation looks like a heck of a good time. The foot doctor going down to look at your foot had me laughing like a loon to myself.
Thanks for this vid , its awesome !
I went a couple of weeks ago, it really is good fun!
I say I love the Edger allen poe Museum, the Mutter Museum, and the ostiology museum in Oklahoma. They are all really cool
I’ve been to the Poe museum in Baltimore- I have to visit the others! Thanks for watching.
I would love to see more episodes about any of the museums featured but especially the last one!
It's wild! I'll definitely do another video just on Viktor Wynd.
I would love a vid on the Ashmolean. When I was there in '99 it was closed, along with Westminster and the Mummies of the British Museum, I was soooo bummed. Since I will never go back.
Museum vrolik in Amsterdam springs in mind if you want to explore more weird museums :
Large, unique collection focusing on oddities & deformities in human & animal anatomy. Fun fact vrolik is phonetically the same in the Dutch language as happy (vrolijk ) which is a bit f an ironic name for the museum Any way many thanks for making your very informative and enjoyable videos !
Oh yes! I have been meaning to go there for years. It is on my shortlist for sure.
The video of the operation theatre sounds quite interesting
God's Own Junkyard has such an Americana feel and seems so out of place for London. I love it!
We have a lot of great neon! But yes, the style is really reminiscent of Highway 66 and Vegas.
These are wonderful! I'm especially happy you visited Tim Hunkin's arcade. He's an absolute legend! I am always happy to see more of the museums you feature. Just assume I'm going to answer Yes to any "would you like me to...?" questions. If I may make a request, could you visit the royal effigies at Westminister the next time you happen to be there? I've seen pictures of the effigies, but I don't really get their scale or how they were actually used. Thank you so much!
I would love to, but filming is strictly prohibited! I have started collecting footage at other Cathedrals with an eye to making a video of every Royal burial site/effigy since William I.
@@TheMuseumGuide Rats! Thank you for getting back to me.
House on the rock in Wisconsin. Huge and overwhelming.
The alchemy museum in Prague is worth a look 😍
Rats - I was just there and didn't go! Next time for sure.
I just finished watching your video of Paris museums...very good
Yeah I wouldn't mind seeing the Viktor Wynd museum
Thank you very much!
@@TheMuseumGuide YW
It’s said to be impossible to stump a London taxi driver. Unless you ask to be taken to Dennis Severs House. 😊At least the one time I visited. It’s an amazing place and I need to go back to see more. ❤️❤️❤️
The weirdest museum I've ever been to? It's kind of a toss-up between three: 1) the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, England; 2) The Dog Collar Museum in Maidstone, England; and 3) and the Kriminal Museum in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. That last one gave me the most chills, btw-- when you're walking through an old prison where more blood has been spilled than you've probably drank in water during your entire life, it makes an impact. Terrible place.
Excellent video! Personally, I'd love to see an ep just on The Magic Circle; that one really whetted my interest, and it'd make a great Halloween video, wouldn't it? Also, if I managed to get into the Novelty Automaton museum, Viktor Wynd's or the Severs House, it might be a day or so before I left... Viktor Wynd's would also make for an excellent full video, especially if you were allowed to film the séance you mentioned.
I love the dog collar Museum!
Yes! To all your questions ❤️
I’ve never been to any of these but will now. Check out the monster kabinet in Berlin
Oooh, I’d love to!
freemasonary is not a secret society but a society with secrets.......I discovered your videos the other day from here in australia and am sooo addicted please please please keep up the oddity ones they are fascinating i am totally addicted and thankyou so much for all the hard work you do its fantastic
Welcome aboard! And that’s a good point. 😂
Any and every museum or more detailed tours are welcomed by me!
Not necessarily the strangest, but I miss the old museum in Melbourne. Victorian cabinetry, glass cases, spooky dioramas, scores of insects and a collection of ghostly spider crabs. One of which would visit my bed at night.
The museums of my childhood left a big impression on me, too!
You should see the Rubber Chicken museum within Archee McPhee in Seattle, Washington!
super video
Thank you for watching!
Two places in London which I'd like you to visit are Samuel Johnson's house and Charterhouse Square.
On it! I love both.
Two I'd suggest in the U.S. are the Mutter Museum of Philadelphia, an outstanding and strange medical museum and the City Museum of St Louis.
I have long dreamed of visiting the Mutter! Maybe they will see this and invite me. :)
Yes, please to all of your excellent video suggestions!
Deal!
The T. T. Wentworth Museum is housed in an old jailhouse in Pensacola, Florida, but when I was a child in the 1970's it was located in Wentworth's old bicycle shop. Heaps of random stuff -- some historically significant, some just odd -- lay on tables throughout the building. There was a desiccated cat found in the wall of a house; an elephant bone which Wentworth claimed was a dinosaur bone; and all sorts of weapons, tools, farm implements, and household items. I would dig through the junk, and when I found something interesting, I would say, "Hey, Mr. Wentworth, what's this?" Mr. Wentworth, then a frail old man sitting behind a wooden table, would tell me in exhaustive detail what the thing was. Sometimes he really knew; sometimes he made stuff up. The modern curated museum is very nice, but I still think the best part is the back room where Wentworth's old rubbish is displayed in rotation.
very cool stuff. The operating room. Was that used in Bram Stoker's Dracula???
I think it was!
Full video on victor wynd's please!
While it is not in the UK my favorite museum when i was growing up was the National Museum of Archeology in Mexico City. Located in the Chapultepec Park it has a lot of the stuff discovered in in Mexico of the Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mayas and other cultures in Mexico. I love all the jewelry , decorated skull, and other stuff found in Oaxaca in the toomb 7. The toomb was supposed to belong to a high priest. Gorgeous gold jewelry! You can buy reproductions of that jewelry in jewelry stores in Oaxaca. I still have a pendant reproduction of a vampire bat with a big pear-belly that is actually a bell, it rings when you move while wearing it. The pendant is made of silver, and gold washed to look like solid gold. The silver makes a bell with a beautiful sound. I think there is also a museum in Oaxaca that has even more objects that were found in or near the toomb 7 on Monte Alban (a mountain near the city of Oaxaca that has the top of it leveled flat covered with ruins of ancient Zapotec buildings). Its a great place to visit near Christmas because at that time you can still go swimming in the hotel's pool. And at christmas they also have the radish festival where they build diaramas or scenes of various things , made entirely from radishes. When i was there the people were very friendly and nice. Some years ago. And the air was a lot cleaner than Mexico City.
Wow, I would love to visit both of these museums! One of my best friends lives in Mexico City, so hopefully I will visit her when my baby is older.
Yes! More Victorian surgery please. ❤️❤️❤️
This is a popular one! Ok, I will get started.
I went to UCL also. I got my MA from the Institute of Archaeology in Artifact Studies
Hello fellow alum!
The weirdest exhibit I've ever seen was Body World, I was 13 when I saw it. I had zombie nightmares for weeks.😅
Fabulous video, many thanks. A wee correction, Kirkcaldy is actually pronounced Kirkaudy. Another one of our wee Scottish quirks 😵💫🤣
I must admit, the strangest museum I’ve ever visited is the Vagina Museum in London. I’ve visited lots of medical museums in my time as a retired nurse but I’d love to visit the Bedlam museum as I’m very interested in the history of medicine strangely enough along with the history of fashion and sewing.
I’d love a further episode about the Victor Wyndham museum as I’ve a book on this very museum and since travelling is now out of my range due to being disabled I can now visit all the fascinating places I’d love to see thanks to you.
It’s only pronounced that way in a Scottish accent- you guys are actually using a voiceless L in your pronunciation- linguistics is so strange! As a Canadian, I don’t have a voiceless L in my accent - only if I mimicked a Scottish accent, which seems tacky!
(The English pronounce his name with the L as well.)
I almost included the Vagina Museum! That’s got to go in Part 2 for sure. :)
Can’t wait for part 2! I’m of the opinion that any female who has insecurities regarding how their external genitalia look them they should come here and see that they are of all shapes and sizes. It may stop some woman going to have their labia lopped off in search of the “perfect” foof!
As an aside, you should make your way to Iceland to visit what could be classed as the Vagina Museum’s counterpart. That’s the Icelandic Phallological Museum. 😂
Love your channel so much. It lets me see places I missed out seeing when I was able bodied and now hubby and I are disabled we can’t travel so keep up the amazing work!
Really really enjoyed this video! I've only visited Dennis Severs house, what was your degree in?
Cultural Heritage Studies. :) Feel free to share the video with anyone you think would enjoy it!
If you enjoyed this virtual tour, please consider leaving me a tip at www.paypal.com/paypalme/jessicatourguide or buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/JessicaGuide - Thank you!
i am interested in victor wyd museum, will be amazing to know more
It’s on my list. :)
अप्रतिम पेंटिंग
Thank you!
MORE ON VIKTOR, PLEASE! 🤘🏻
Your wish is my command!
Your wish is my command.
The Mutter Museum. Philly has lots of oddities.
I’d love to go! Please tell them on social media to invite me. ❤️
🙋🏻♀️I'm interested in a more in-depth video about surgery before anesthesia! 🤘🏻
I'll start working on it!
Have you been to the Soane Museum? One of my favourites!
I have! I have a video planned.
Have you been to the Muir Museum of Medical Oddities in Pennsylvania? Recommend!🙌
The torture museum in Rothenburg.
Good suggestion!
Hunterian Museum, London. Mutter Museum, Philadelphia.
Where I grew up there is a Big Foot Museum. Just down the road from the house my ex husband grew up in.
Ooooh, where?
@@TheMuseumGuide Felton, California, USA
Ilfracombe museum, very odd
Oooh, I was just there a few years ago! It was during Covid, so the museum was closed. I will need to go again!
A special visit to #1 (the Wynd Museum?) would be grand!
Embalmed Yoda, 8:04
Kir-coddy!
Not in a Canadian accent! :)
Of course Charles was into magic. That just tracks.
I’m dead. 💀
i mean thats truly the dream, get so famous your poop can go in a museum
Gotta have goals! 🤣
Personally I think just 2 in the same time
Not sure I understand?
@@TheMuseumGuide 2 longer visits in the same video timeframe ! more in depth
“The filthier the coat, the more respected surgeon” oh no, this explains a lot. Its easy for us to look back and judge doctors of the past but that it really ridiculous.
It meant they worked a lot. 🤣
"Widow's Son" can mean a Freemason so the pub of this name may have been a Masonic lodge.
I’m learning that now! So interesting.
The “L” in Kirkcaldy is silent. It’s pronounced “kirkcawday”.. 🙄
Not with my accent, it’s not. ;)
Apparently Canadians get special dispensation to mangle other's words if they don't fit their 'accent' I will try that when I screw up in Spanish! 'Whaddya mean its Poyo? It's spelled Pollo and I don't care if that is something very rude! I will continue making myself look like a numpty because that is My perogative!' Lol!
Steampunk HQ - Steampunk Museum in Oamaru NZ was quite cool.