LAARC and the Museum of London

               Today started mid-morning with the class meeting in the courtyard.  From there we split up in to two groups: One with Dr. Welsh to go visit the Museum of London and the other group with Dr. Griffis to visit the optional trip to the London Archaeological Archive Research Centre (LAARC).  I decided to go with Dr. Griffis’ group to LAARC in the morning and then to the Museum of London in the afternoon. 

                LAARC is a wonderful place.  In 2012, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized LAARC for being the world’s largest archeological archive.  LAARC has done about 8,500 excavations, but only has information on about 3,500 excavations because some of the sites do not have anything on them.  They have five storage rooms: one for paper, one for metals, and three for everything else.  I could definitely spend hours in there just looking around if I could.  

        Next we hopped on the bus and headed to the Museum of London.  There we went around and looked at the different sections of the museum. The sections are: London before London 450,000 BC - AD 50, The Romans and The River AD 50 - 410, Medieval London 410-1558 , War, Plague, and Fire 1550s - 1660s, Expanding City 1666 - 1850s, People's City 1850s - 1940s, World City 1950s - today, The City Gallery, The Sackler Hall, and The London 2012 Cauldron: designing a moment.  All of it was pretty cool to look at.  I liked to look at the information on the plague the most because it has always been a fascination of mine.  Also, being able to walk through the museum and see how London has changed since the prehistoric times was very interesting.  Being able to start the exhibit with viewing a mammoth's foot to going all the way to viewing the cauldron from the 2012 Summer Olympics was very mind blowing.

(St. Paul's Cathedral before it burned down)

This is a replica of the old St Paul's Cathedral before it burned down. This replica is over 100 years old.  It was made by J B Thorp in 1908 and was shown at the White City Exhibition.  In 1912, it was acquired by the London Museum.

This clock shows the time in London in hours, minutes, and seconds, and records the date, month, and mean solar time.  Also, there are eight 24 hour clock faces that gave the time for Sydney, Madras, New York, Canton, Calcutta, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople. The clock was part of the International Exhibition of 1862. 

This is a picture of one the videos that was playing in the exhibit of a couple doing the Charleston on a moving vehicle.  Throughout the video it showed life in London during that time.  For more information about the museum go to http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/london-wall/

Till next time!

Sarah