Amazing artefacts!

Devon has a brand new museum – The Box in Plymouth – alongside some excellent established venues in the county such as Exeter’s RAMM. SU CARROLL goes on the trail of some of the county’s less well-known museums…

- RAMM. SU CARROLL

I can remember, as a young child, the thrill of visiting a museum. There would be display cases packed with stuffed animals and birds, drawers of magnificent minibeasts pinned in neat rows and always an exhibit to be approached with caution... like an Egyptian mummy, something strange floating in a specimen jar or a stuffed brown bear ready to pounce.

Museums today are no less fascinating, but they are much less intimidating (unless that’s because I’m older!) The Box in Plymouth is a multi-million building which retains the façade of the old city museum but has a new light-filled, glass-walled extension. In Exeter, the wonderful Royal Albert Memorial Museum had a refurbishment in 2011 to bring its Victorian facilities into the 21st century.

As well as the household names of the museum world, Devon has its fair share of quirky places to visit – many of them dedicated to one subject – that make for interesting places to visit.

One of my favourites is the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum on the Exeter University campus. Bill Douglas (1934-91) was a really important British independent filmmaker whose love of cinema extended to collecting ephemera and memorabilia with his friend, Peter Jewell. Regarded as one of the best collections of its kind in Europe, it was donated to the university after Bill’s death and opened in 1997.

Film fan Phil Wickham, curator of the museum, says there are exhibits which date back to the very early days of cinema.