dayout Archives - Neil Turner's Blog

Recent days out

January 22, 2024 by Neil Turner

A model of an armoured elephant at the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds

Although it’s currently the bleak midwinter – and I mean bleak, with sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures last week and Storm Isha this week – we have managed a few days out. Some of these were in the first week of the year, as our eight-year-old didn’t go back to the school until the following week.

Here’s where we’ve been:

Manchester Science & Industry Museum

A photo of Stephen Hawking's wheelchair, currently on display at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester

The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester is somewhere that we typically end up at least once a year. This time was mainly for the Food, Poo and You exhibition, which features content from the presenters of Operation Ouch (including Dr Chris, writer of Ultra-Processed People). It didn’t take much convincing our eight-year-old to go to an exhibition about poo, and it’s well presented. Just be aware that, whilst the rest of the museum is free, this is a paid-for exhibition and you’re advised to pre-book. My wife happened to be working that day and so I expect we’ll be going back before it finishes in June, after which it’ll probably go to the Science Museum in London.

Also there at the moment is Prof Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair. I was naturally more excited about this than our eight-year-old was.

What isn’t at the museum at the moment is, well, about three quarters of the museum. It’s just what’s available in the ‘New Warehouse’; a huge restoration programme means that the other buildings are closed. The Power Hall should be open again next year if all goes well.

Eureka

Considering how often I pass Eureka, and the fact that we have a young child, it’s perhaps surprising that it’s been almost seven years since my last visit. And like that time, it was partly due to some Tesco Clubcard vouchers expiring. The museum hasn’t changed much in that time; the main difference was that the car garage is now a community area with a bus and a smaller electric car exhibit.

It’s still a good museum for half a day, and at eight years old our child isn’t too old for it. There’s a new Eureka, focussing more on science for slightly older kids, in Wirral which we need to visit at some point.

Royal Armouries, Leeds

A disarmed AK-47 rifle that has been covered in sprinkles and Love Hearts sweets

The last time we went to the Royal Armouries was for Thought Bubble, back in 2016. Museums about war and armour aren’t really my thing, but our eight-year-old had read a library book about them recently and so it was an opportunity to see some of those things in real life.

The Reloaded exhibition is interesting, as it looked at guns as gifts and objects of desire. There were also a couple of commissioned art pieces, such as an AK-47 covered with sprinkles and Love Hearts. It’s always fun to see the elephant armour too.

We have a few more busy weekends coming up, so I doubt we’ll be going anywhere else for a few weeks.

Going back to Eureka as an adult

January 20, 2024April 27, 2017 by Neil Turner

When I was a kid, I used to love going to Eureka, the national children’s museum in Halifax. I was eight years old when it opened in 1992, and so I was in the right age group to visit. I remember going with primary school at least once, and with my parents on other occasions.

Eureka turns 25 this year, and I took Lizzie along a few weeks ago. She’s been three times now – once with me, and twice with her mum. I took her because Christine was working that weekend, and we had a Tesco Clubcard Days Out voucher that was about to expire.

There are still quite a few bits of the museum there that I remember. I remember pedalling on a fixed bike, and seeing a skeleton appear doing the same motions. That’s still there, although the rest of the gallery around it is new. The SoundSpace gallery is new; Lizzie found this really stimulating with lots of sound and light. We also spent a little bit of time in Living and Working Together, and All About Me, but having arrived there after lunch on a Saturday there was only limited time.

When Eureka opened, it was almost unique in the level of interactivity offered. So many museums at the time locked their exhibits behind glass cases, and there would only be the occasional button to press. Eureka was different – you could play with just about everything. It was all about learning through play – a concept that it now applies to its nursery, which is consistently rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted. Nowadays, many more museums have exhibits which are accessible to kids, but Eureka was pioneering in this respect.

Eureka entry prices

Although it’s a national museum, Eureka doesn’t receive any central government funding, hence the need to charge an entrance fee. Our local MP, Holly Lynch, has been campaigning to change this. Making it free would be fantastic for Halifax, as it could bring in many more visitors to the town. Work is already ongoing to better link the town centre and the Piece Hall with Eureka and the railway station.

As it stands, for a family of two adults and two children aged 3 or over, a day out at Eureka is almost £52. Whilst the tickets are then valid for unlimited repeat visits within the subsequent 12 months, it’s still a big initial outlay. And that doesn’t include food at the café, parking or travel. It would be great if the museum could become more accessible to those on lower incomes.

Eureka is still a fantastic museum for kids. Quite a lot has changed in 25 years and I’m pleased to see how it’s developed. But it was also nice to go back and see things that I remembered when I was younger. And now that we live nearby, we’ll be getting the most out of our annual passes.

A day out in Saltaire

May 17, 2025June 9, 2013 by Neil Turner

On Friday both Christine and I had the day off work, and as it was a warm, sunny day, we went to visit the Victorian model village of Saltaire. I probably end up here at least once a year for some reason or other.Mostly to visit Salts Mill – home of many of David Hockney‘s paintings and photographs, as well as some quirky shops. But the village itself is worthy of a stroll around. Saltaire was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, and despite being built by Sir Titus Salt, an avid follower of the temperance movement, it now has several nice bars to spend time in.

There’s also Roberts Park, on the other side of the River Aire from the village, which is one of my favourite parks. A major restoration project was completed three years ago and the park now boasts a nice café. When the weather is like it was on Friday, it makes for a great place to sit with a cold drink.In a rare example of organisation, I’ve already uploaded the photos that I took to Flickr for your perusal. At some point, I’ll get around to uploading the rest of the photos from Paris as well…

Wakefield and the Hepworth Gallery

December 23, 2024June 27, 2011 by Neil Turner

On Saturday, Christine and I went to Wakefield, to visit the Hepworth Gallery, a new art gallery and museum built to house the collections of Barbara Hepworth, along with some works by other artists and sculptors inspired by her. The gallery is located next to the River Calder and is in easy walking distance from Wakefield Kirkgate station. Despite costing £35million to build, entry is free, and you can easily spend a couple of hours here.

The architecture of the building is interesting – it’s a thick concrete shell in the 1960s brutalist style, but with a clever use of windows to let in a reasonable amount of light. Of course, the thick concrete walls mean that you probably won’t have a working mobile phone in here.

I didn’t take any pictures inside as photography isn’t allowed (being modern art, most of the works are still under copyright restrictions) but I did take plenty out and around the gallery. It’s sited in an area of Wakefield that is in need of regeneration, so hopefully this will act as a catalyst to get people and businesses into the area.

Across the road is Wakefield Bridge and the Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, a 14th century chapel on the bridge itself – one of only four in such a location and the oldest surviving example. Although it’s around 650 years old, it is still regularly used for church services. Certainly worth a look if you’re about.

Although I’ve lived in Yorkshire all my life, this is the first time I’ve been to Wakefield, bar passing through on the train, and so we went into the town to have a look around. Parts of the city centre are very run down, although work is going on to regenerate it, including the new Trinity Walk shopping plaza which, like the Hepworth Gallery, opened a few weeks ago. It ties in with a refurbished market, with a striking overall roof.

The city, which is the smallest of the three in West Yorkshire, still has some way to go before it’s looking as nice as Leeds city centre. In particular, the smallest of its two railway stations, Wakefield Kirkgate, was described by the previous secretary of state for transport Lord Adonis as probably the worst ‘medium-large’ station I have seen in Britain^[source], and having seen it for myself I can see why – those buildings that are still standing are boarded up, it’s dirty, there’s no staff around, there’s paint peeling off the walls and just looks generally dilapidated. Not a nice welcome to the city. The other station, Wakefield Westgate, whilst not the most pleasant of stations, at least has some amenities and a staff presence.

It’ll be interesting to go back to Wakefield again in a couple of years, once some of the regeneration projects have progressed further. We also didn’t visit the cathedral or the Wakefield Museum, so they’re there for a future visit.