Britains crappiest 'Days Out'.....

[barrett]

Hey Michiel, I think I saw some of that collection when it was at the Jamaica Inn. For a minute I thought you were talking about the Booth museum in Brighton, which is stuffed (ho ho!) with hundreds of taxidermied oddities too.

[michiel]

Ah, cheers! I might have to go there if I ever get to visit Brighton again, to relive those wonderful summer days of 1980... the smell of the tarmac boulevard after the rain, the fatty soft ice (from a place called Maroc iirc), the hot beach stones (it didn't rain all the time). The dioramas got auctioned, so I guess you can see them at lots of places now.

[mattblack]

Is it wrong that I've visited a lot of the places mentioned...?

 

Caister Castle motor museum has a Singer Airstream and the first Fiesta off the production line... what's not to like?

[AnthonyG]

Anybody been to this place, the lorry museum in Leyland?

 

http://www.bcvm.co.uk/

 

It was on the box in the BBC 'Inside Museums' series, they were some comedy old giffers moaning about the 'new management' - some poor sod actually trying to increase visitors, raise money etc. The old gits tried to launch a counter coup, were told off by the trustees and buggered off grumpily, one taking his lorry with him.

 

Edit - It would probably be quite a good day out, there's some quality stuff in there.

[MrDuke]

 

Most of the places in here have already been mentioned, awesome book though. Worth getting just for the write-ups even if you don't bother visiting them, although some are genuinely quality places.

Plus the badly-photoshopped Traveller on the cover

[Formula Autos]

My neck of the woods (Cumbria) is prime pointless attraction territory.

 

The Pencil Museum in Keswick has already been mentioned. It's now even more pointless, as the pencil factory itself (which used to be next to the museum) has moved to an industrial estate in another town many miles away.

 

Another highlight is Millom Folk Museum, which boasts, amongst other delights, graveyard inscriptions from local churches - available on CD-Rom:

http://www.millomfolkmuseum.co.uk/

 

There's also The Beacon, which is hard to describe, really. It's a sort of obese lighthouse, I suppose. Anyhow, judge for yourselves:

http://www.thebeacon-whitehaven.co.uk/

 

Also in Whitehaven is The Rum Story. All you never needed to know about one form of alcohol. At least you can buy some of the stuff in the shop, knock it back, and try and blot out your visit:

http://www.rumstory.co.uk/

 

Like sheep? Then head to the Sheep & Wool Centre:

http://www.ukattraction.com/cumbria+lak ... centre.htm

 

T'is a veritable shitefest in these parts.

[mattblack]

The Pencil Museum in Keswick has already been mentioned. It's now even more pointless

 

LOL!

[MK5 Escort]

How about Quince Honey Farm in South Molton? I’ve been holidaying in Devon for many years and there are many decent places to visit. This is easily one of the very worst that I’ve visited in the area. The 'Exhibition' is basically a few sprawling passageways largely made up of plywood with a few random boxes scattered around containing bees...

 

The building(s) are even shite.

 

Wigan Pier

 

Oh yes...! Now that place is, or was, awful.

[Cavcraft]

Rhyl. The whole fucking place seems to be a museum dedicated to scouse smackheads and dole cheats.

[Guest]

For rubbish days out, I followed with interest the stories about Lapland New Forest. This was around Christmas 2008.

 

 

WOW! Only £25 a person! It'll be so festive.

 

 

Except they really got there and it was just a rubbish, expensive funfair on a muddy field with loads of bored men in ill-fitting elf costumes having a tab.

 

Sadly, it got shut down due to immense media pressure (and lots of the staff being punched by angry punters). I'm a particularly unpleasant person, so the idea of a load of rotten kids being dragged to this incredibly disappointing event at Christmas filled my little cold heart with joy.

[Cavcraft]

FLOL!

 

Remember that, loads of disappointed fat birds in Chrysler people carriers and shitty bits of tinsel nailed to a tree. I think Trading Standards eventually pulled the plug.

[ProgRocker]

http://www.caistercastle.co.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=57

 

YES!

That is a right bobbins museum, I have been there twice!

Not a patch on Stondon, but it is staffed by some right mad old giffers who have clearly either got early stage dementia, have been at the sherry or know the square root of fuck all about old motors (likely a combo of all three) if the tripe they tell you in the 'tour' is anything to go by.

[Mr Lobster]

Anybody been to this place, the lorry museum in Leyland?

 

http://www.bcvm.co.uk/

 

It was on the box in the BBC 'Inside Museums' series, they were some comedy old giffers moaning about the 'new management' - some poor sod actually trying to increase visitors, raise money etc. The old gits tried to launch a counter coup, were told off by the trustees and buggered off grumpily, one taking his lorry with him.

 

Edit - It would probably be quite a good day out, there's some quality stuff in there.

 

I quite fancy going there, I reckon it'd be ok. One for the Northern shiteists (and those who don't mind a bit of a drive) perhaps?

[Lord Sterling]

For rubbish days out, I followed with interest the stories about Lapland New Forest. This was around Christmas 2008.

 

 

I saw this on the news. Funniest thing I've ever seen. Didnt the owner take the money and run or something?

[M'coli]

Anybody been to this place, the lorry museum in Leyland?

 

http://www.bcvm.co.uk/

 

It was on the box in the BBC 'Inside Museums' series, they were some comedy old giffers moaning about the 'new management' - some poor sod actually trying to increase visitors, raise money etc. The old gits tried to launch a counter coup, were told off by the trustees and buggered off grumpily, one taking his lorry with him.

 

Edit - It would probably be quite a good day out, there's some quality stuff in there.

 

I quite fancy going there, I reckon it'd be ok. One for the Northern shiteists (and those who don't mind a bit of a drive) perhaps?

Yes, I'd be up for it.

[michael1703]

I went to the pencil museum once

and all i got was the lead off the roof

[Justin Case]

For a depressing day out I can recommend Aston Manor Transport Museum.

 

http://www.amrtm.org/index.html

 

To be fair they have preserved a lot of local vehicles that would otherwise have been lost and it is dirt cheap to visit, but someone there has obviously been to the Stondon Academy of Museum Planning and Layout

[trigger]

I saw that documentary about the Leyland museum, It actually looked like a really good place to visit, I'm sure they had a early Sherpa as well.

 

There's a Transport Museum here in Ipswich, It's only around the corner so i should really make the effort to visit it.

[AnthonyG]

For a depressing day out I can recommend Aston Manor Transport Museum.

 

http://www.amrtm.org/index.html

 

To be fair they have preserved a lot of local vehicles that would otherwise have been lost and it is dirt cheap to visit, but someone there has obviously been to the Stondon Academy of Museum Planning and Layout

 

I actually thought it had closed, otherwise I would gone when I was working in Brum.

 

For a actual good day out (if you like all sorts of old junk and random bits of machinery) I recommend the open days of Birmingham Museum Collections Centre, just about everything from a 1930s washing machine to a massive Telephone antenna from the Brum BT Tower.

 

http://www.bmag.org.uk/Museum-collections-centre

[whitevanman]

Anybody been to this place, the lorry museum in Leyland?

 

http://www.bcvm.co.uk/

 

It was on the box in the BBC 'Inside Museums' series, they were some comedy old giffers moaning about the 'new management' - some poor sod actually trying to increase visitors, raise money etc. The old gits tried to launch a counter coup, were told off by the trustees and buggered off grumpily, one taking his lorry with him.

 

Edit - It would probably be quite a good day out, there's some quality stuff in there.

 

I quite fancy going there, I reckon it'd be ok. One for the Northern shiteists (and those who don't mind a bit of a drive) perhaps?

Yes, I'd be up for it.

 

 

Me too

[Justin Case]

For a depressing day out I can recommend Aston Manor Transport Museum.

 

http://www.amrtm.org/index.html

 

To be fair they have preserved a lot of local vehicles that would otherwise have been lost and it is dirt cheap to visit, but someone there has obviously been to the Stondon Academy of Museum Planning and Layout

 

I actually thought it had closed, otherwise I would gone when I was working in Brum.

 

 

No, they are still hanging on by the skin of their teeth, as they have been for at least 15 years to my knowledge , and have even got a couple of events coming up :

2010 EVENTS PROGRAMME

 

SUNDAY 17th OCTOBER

60 YEARS OF NEW LOOK BIRMINGHAM STANDARDS - Birmingham's famous 'tin fronts' are 60 years old this

year. Join us for a celebration and the chance to once again ride on these iconic buses.

 

SUNDAY 28th NOVEMBER

14th ANNUAL COLLECTORS’ FAIR - Sales stands, exhibitions of models etc. PLUS FREE

Bus Service to and from City Centre.

 

[Futuramic]

Colchester is seething with this kind of thing, from the Clock Museum near the library to Gnome Magic off the A12. For green loonies there's the Boxted alternative energy project - which consists of a small wind turbine. That's it; a wind turbine. One! In the middle of a rather fine vineyard. Further afield there's the Mersea Island museum. I've never actually been to it but I imagine a shrine to good oysters and inbreeding.

 

In terms of actual shite museums I've been to plenty. One that sticks in my mind was located somewhere in Norfolk. It was raining and country walking was rendered inadvisable. Father Futuramic, at mother's behest, halted his LX Mondeo outside "The Smoking Museum". Yes, yes he did. Said gallery was bafflingly enormous and required a good couple of hours to get round. Still it was good to hear reminisences concerning Woodbines, Players and Capstan. Pipes were represented as were Castro pleasing cigars. Cruella De Vil would have got wet by the display of cigarette holders: long, short, ejecting and valuable.

 

Ironically the only thing one couldn't do in there was have a puff.

 

For those who travel internationally I can recommend the Danish museum of model container ships. In Helsingborg for your convenience.

[pogweasel]

The smoking museum is adjacent to the windmill at Stalham if I recall correctly.

Whilst definately a 'minority interest', I found it really quite interesting. Quite an enjoyable couple of hours to be had at that place all told, as you can have a good poke around the windmill too. Plus you can stop off at the legendary "Lathams" nearby for a mega-shite retail experience.

[Futuramic]

Apologies if my cutting (geddit) sarcasm masked my true opinions. I very much enjoyed the museum, being a smoker myself - see the self portrait topis for confirmation, and did poke about in the windmill.

 

I'd thoroughly reccomend the place.

[boobydoo]

Plus you can stop off at the legendary "Lathams" nearby for a mega-shite retail experience.

 

Is Lathams some spakky department store stuck in a 70s time-warp a la Grace Brothers? I seem to remember watching some TV documentary a while ago about some shop in that neck of the woods run by complete no-hopers who seemed to think that beige tank-tops and slacks were still 'in'.

[pogweasel]

Lathams is basically a massive pound-shop inhabited by weather-beaten Norfolk pensioners.

What makes it 'better' is that unlike most pound-shops, it is situated in a massive shed-like building slap-bang next to the broads, one of those sort of planning oddities that has evolved rather than be established - if you went to the council today and told them that you wanted to build a warehouse full of horrible things right next to a really nice bit of countryside and quite far from anything resembling 'urban-ness' you'd be laughed at, and possibly sectioned.

 

To contextualise a bit more, on our self-catering holidays to the broads we ALWAYS forget certain essentials, like tea-towels - so day#1 will involve a trip to Latham's to purchase the most horribly twee, chintzy tea-towels that it is possible to imagine. Cute but deformed-looking puppies, or souvenier maps of Norfolk for instance.

 

I do also purchase most of my socks from there.... 6 pairs for a quid, get in.

 

http://www.lathams-potter-heigham.co.uk/

[Cavcraft]

Holy crud we've been to the tat-tastic Latham's as well. I wished we'd purchased some of those tea towels to stick in our ears when we went on a boat trip round the broads. The bloke doing the commentary made a weekend nailed to a radiator in a damp celler underneath a reservoir seem positively exciting.

 

If anyone's desperate enough then 'The World's Biggest 50p Shop'* isn't too far from here. Check out some twat on Youtube going round it, he's camper than an international tent exhibition.

 

 

*Up there with boasting you have the biggest collection of bum fluff in the West Midlands I'd imagine.

[eddyramrod]

Leyland Truck Museum, marvellous, been to a few shows there. They have a programme of events all year round, so it's well worth checking them out. If you have even the slightest interest in old trucks, it's the place to be. In the cafe you can browse old copies of truck-related magazines while you sip your proper mug of coffee and chomp on your bacon butty. I bought my Foden coat there...

[MrDuke]

I LOVE shite emporiums like the above-mentioned - I can literally spend hours wandering round with a permanent look of delight on my face. I think the fact that they even exist just messes with my head - I can understand some pokey high-street pound shop staying afloat by flogging lighters and marijuana-leaf-design beach towels to the local council-estate pond life, but I've never quite grasped the concept of entire warehouses selling stacks of utter chod of every description to passers-by.

I especially like browsing through the motor-accessory section, complete with all manner of tools and electrical equipment that you'd never actually want to use, plus at least half a dozen 'innovations' that you had no idea you even needed, like dashboard-mounted tampon-dispensers or boot-liners that double up as road maps.

Plus all the frankly awesome kitchenware and crockery, in colours you'd never ever find elsewhere, and slightly inappropriate kids' colouring-in books... oh, and there'll be a few highly illegal hunting knives somewhere, too. Just utter, utter, retail joy.

[aled]

heres one i have driven past.

 

 

Internal Fire

Museum of Power

 

 

 

on the wast coast of wales near cardigan.