dock museum barrow

[oscarsmate]

Has anyone been to the dock museum at barrow in furness, it's small but free. There are a number of builders models ships which have been built in Barrow over the years. Among them were HMS Erin (1915), HMS Invincible and a Japanese battle cruiser Kongo 1916. These things are about 6 feet long and fantastically detailed a real testimony to the modelmakers art, they are housed in glass cases which hinders the quality of my photos.

here's a taster, let me know if you are interested in seeing more

[cmatthewbacon]

They’re brilliant, aren’t they? They were definitely the highlight of a pretty good smallish local museum, for me. What a resource to have, though...

Of course, they’re not “just” models... made after the event. These things are part-prototype, part sales brochure, part catalogue ("here’s one we made earlier") used to agree with prospective purchasers like, say, the Chilean or Turkish or Japanese Navies just what it was they were going to get - or sometimes not get, when the government of the day realised that they were getting better ships than the Royal Navy and confiscated/impounded and eventually compulsorily-purchased them!

It’s well worth the visit if you happen to be in that somewhat inaccessible neck of the woods, but it’s quite a haul, even from your typical Lake District holiday destinations, never mind the “mainland” ;-P

bestest,

M.

Edited July 14, 2010 by cmatthewbacon

[Barrovian]

I used to see these when I walked home from the Grammar school, they used to be on display in the shipyard apprentice school buildings at the eastern end of the Jubilee bridge, if memory serves me right, they were built by the appenrices at the yard. Glad to see they found a good home.

I might build my Hasegawa 1/350 IJN Mikasa now, also built in Barrow.

Inaccessible part of the world....how dare you...just because Barrow is on the end of a 30 mile cul-de-sac

Edited July 15, 2010 by Barrovian

[oscarsmate]

if memory serves me right, they were built by the appenrices at the yard. Glad to see they found a good home.

there's a considerable amount of information about the makers, apparently there was a dedicated section of the yard to make them not just apprentices because as you say they were showing the yards talents. The quality of the work was outstanding.

I was fascinated by them, unfortunately I was with family and my wife had to literally drag me away.

Think this is the Mikasa, base of the mast detail

and

Port side centre

[David J Ross]

Actually, those are photos of the Kongo. There are no large scale models of the Mikasa at the museum. I pass the Dock Museum every day going to and from work.

It's interesting that you have those photos as, as far as I knew, photographing the exhibits was prohibited. When Kombrig were planning their 1/700th resin HMS Erin they put out a request for details of the centre section of the boat. I contacted the museum and was given permission to take some shots of the area (and only that area) in question. The technique I find works best, in dealing with glass cases, is to take my pictures at an angle to the glass so that the light, from the flash, bounces away from the camera.

My shots, of the Erin, can be found here if anyone is interested... http://david-j-ross.fotopic.net/c396237.html

I, also, have some old Dock Museum shots taken in 2003 in my Fotopic collection here... http://david-j-ross.fotopic.net/

As taster of some other ship model photos here is a shot of the builder's model of the Russiam vessel Rurik.

Edited June 29, 2013 by David J Ross

[Mike McCabe]

How annoying, I drove past it two days ago but was with a group from work so wasn't able to stop. Not sure when I will be that way again...

Mike

[Test Graham]

I recall, as a child, many similar marvellous models in the Newcastle Museum on the Town Moor. The museum has since moved into town, and been renamed to some trendy fashion. I couldn't find it when I last drove around, but am prepared to accept that fault could be mine there.

[oscarsmate]

I didn't see any signs saying photography wasn't permitted, certainly other people were taking photoes as well. Perhaps they are wary of commercial photography?

It certainly is worth a visit as I found it fascinating, I wish I had more time there or lived closer.

[mollythedog]

I too would love to visit this museum,and have promised myself that one day I will. I have used their photographic reproduction service,and can recommend them. Nice photos,quick service (much quicker than the IWM,but then again,I imagine they don't have the same number of requests to deal with).

A long way to go,but thanks for reminding me about it. As someone has mentioned it in this thread,is there a museum in Newcastle that has builders models or a photo archive? Or others north of Watford (I know of and have visited the ones in Glasgow and Liverpool,and can highly recommend both).

[cmatthewbacon]

I think the Newcastle one you want is the Discovery Museum:

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/discovery/

They say that they have the Turbinia on display in the entrance hall, which I remember from the museum in the park (which must have been the Town Moor mentioned earlier). They also talk about "celebrating Newcastle's rich maritime heritage" which sounds like there might be models (and, I hope the collection of scale bronze propellors...), and they have an exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir William Armstrong, one of Tyneside's driving industrial forces...

The archives are more centralised, and are here:

Tyne and Wear Archives

And you can get a catalogue/guide to what they hold in relation to shipbuilding here:

User Guide

bestest,

M.

Edited July 17, 2010 by cmatthewbacon

[mollythedog]

I think the Newcastle one you want is the Discovery Museum:

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/discovery/

They say that they have the Turbinia on display in the entrance hall, which I remember from the museum in the park (which must have been the Town Moor mentioned earlier). They also talk about "celebrating Newcastle's rich maritime heritage" which sounds like there might be models (and, I hope the collection of scale bronze propellors...), and they have an exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir William Armstrong, one of Tyneside's driving industrial forces...

The archives are more centralised, and are here:

Tyne and Wear Archives

And you can get a catalogue/guide to what they hold in relation to shipbuilding here:

User Guide

bestest,

M.

Cheers Matt,

I'll look up these and try and plan a trip to all-doing it via Hull (from the continent) before going to SMW might work,just wish Telford was at an earlier time of year,like September.For those of us not on its doorstep spending a week or 2 on holiday in the area is quite nice,except for the weather at that time of year!

[David J Ross]

I didn't see any signs saying photography wasn't permitted, certainly other people were taking photoes as well. Perhaps they are wary of commercial photography?

It certainly is worth a visit as I found it fascinating, I wish I had more time there or lived closer.

I called in, on mt way home for lunch, today. The signs that I remembered have gone now. I checked on the museum's policy on photographing th ships and was told that as long as it was not for profit purposes it was now permitted.

I was unaware of the change so I apologise for inferring that any wrong-doing had been done.

I willl have to give some thought to taking shots of the Erin that I was unable to get last time.

[Mike McCabe]

For anyone in the Merseyside area a hidden gem is the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead, this has a number of builders models which are well worth seeing.

Mike

[Julien]

We had some really nice models in Cammell Lairds when I was there.

I often wonder what happened to them when it closed.

Julien

[Mike McCabe]

We had some really nice models in Cammell Lairds when I was there.

I often wonder what happened to them when it closed.

Julien

May be some of the same in this gallery, from memory there is Mauretania II, Leasowe Castle and a few others, though I'm not sure if they were Laird's. I've heard that the Prince of Wales is in Birkenhead Town Hall but not had a chance to look. There are still a number in the Maritime Museum in Liverpool though hopefully a few more once the new museum of Liverpool opens and they can move out the various pop music and associated exhibits and return it to doing what it says on the tin.

Mike

[Madam I'm Adam]

I think the Newcastle one you want is the Discovery Museum:

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/discovery/

They say that they have the Turbinia on display in the entrance hall, which I remember from the museum in the park (which must have been the Town Moor mentioned earlier). They also talk about "celebrating Newcastle's rich maritime heritage" which sounds like there might be models (and, I hope the collection of scale bronze propellors...), and they have an exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir William Armstrong, one of Tyneside's driving industrial forces...

The archives are more centralised, and are here:

Tyne and Wear Archives

And you can get a catalogue/guide to what they hold in relation to shipbuilding here:

User Guide

bestest,

M.

Turbinia is there in the entrance and used to be, many years ago, more than 10 years ago, in the Turbinia Hall off the Palace of the Arts, or Military Vehicle Museum as folk tend to call it (even though the MV museum is a tenant rather than a building.

There is a whole wall of models in the Discovery Museum and a vast model of the Tyne & shipbuilding. There are lots of other models around the place and other stuff. Just don't try to park in the car parks outside, use the multistory on the other side of St James Boulivard.

Cheers

Adam

[David J Ross]

Just realised this is one of the many threads I have replied to that still contains links to my now defunct photo collections that were at Fotopic. I have since added most of my photos to a new collection at SmugMug.

One of the ships at the Dock Museum...

More here... http://david-j-ross.smugmug.com/ModelShip/...762&k=dQTeA

[JohnMGD]

Hi Guys (and girls);

I have a very bold question ! In this thread there are some beautiful pictures of models from the Dock Museum in Barrow-in-Furness. Oscarsmate already sent me some beautiful pictures of HMS Erin and others that he took when he visited the museum. Also David Ross made some extraordinary galleries of several ships in the museum, which I like very much.

My question is though, I am extremely interested in the Builders model of the Japanese battleship KONGO, and would like to have some Hi-Res pictures of the model. I am planning to build a scale 1:200 model of KONGO in this configuration. Taking pictures would be difficult because of the glass case around the ship, but there are ways to get around this, for instance taking pictures with the help of a circular polarisation filter or if not using a filter taking pictures at a angle to the glass, so that you have as less as reflection as possible, in this way using a flash is also possible. I would like to take the pictures myself, but for some reason it is impossible for me to do !!

Hope some of you are able to go to the museum and take some pictures for me !

Regards

John Dohmen.

My models: http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/users/John-Dohmen/user-index.html

Edited October 29, 2014 by JohnMGD

[JohnMGD]

Mr. David Ross, I see you were online and visited the forum yesterday, could you please contact me via PM and send me a message about my question, please !!

Regards

John Dohmen.

[Niall]

We had some really nice models in Cammell Lairds when I was there.

I often wonder what happened to them when it closed.

Julien

I think some of the Cammell Lairds models are in the maritime museum at the Albert Dock in Liverpool.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Niall

[stevej60]

I recall, as a child, many similar marvellous models in the Newcastle Museum on the Town Moor. The museum has since moved into town, and been renamed to some trendy fashion. I couldn't find it when I last drove around, but am prepared to accept that fault could be mine there.

Me too Graham,my dad took me a few times with the actual Turbinia inside as well as all those shipwrights models.it all got moved to the discovery

museum in Blandford street which is on the main road that comes over the redheugh bridge and leads to St James park.The Turbinia is there and last week

they placed a challenger tank outside I assume from the Vickers factory nearby and all those lovely ship models are still inside.

[gregg136]

Discovery have the builders model for the Mauretania, but it's not in the hall with the other models, it's right at the back of the "Tyneside challenge" room, took me about 50 visits before I finally found it and I'm still figuring out how to steal it.. They also had an exhibition a few years back about the shipyards with a section of the hull plating and the builders model of the last Ark Royal.

[David J Ross]

Finally managed to get to the museum and take some photos.

http://david-j-ross.smugmug.com/ModelShip/Builders-model-of-the-Kongo/45596130_tKgNcF#!i=3681723539&k=bKtDQ3X

[JohnMGD]

I thanked David already personally, but I also like to do it publicly, for his amazing photographs of the Builders model of KONGO in the Dock Museum in Barrow, Thanks again David, you are the best ! They will be very welcome in designing and building my model of KONGO !!!

John.