If you’re looking for a whole host of intriguing, quirky, and curious objects, then come and visit the Museum of Cambridge! We’re Covid-safe and a great way to spend a winter afternoon.
Since it opened in 1936, the museum has been a unique part of Cambridge’s cultural landscape. While you can see wonderful collections of ancient objects from around the world in other Cambridge museums, the Museum of Cambridge tells the stories of the people of Cambridge itself: the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.
Where else can you see the huge boots of the Histon Giant, discover the real Muffin Man, or find the prize belt of the long-distance champion of the world? Not to mention a real-life mantrap or the huge ‘punt gun’ designed to shoot a whole flock of birds out of the sky at once?
Can you guess what these objects are?
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The answers will be published on The Local View’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds later today.
As we have so many wonderful, curious and quirky objects, we’ve hugely enjoyed asking our followers on social media to ‘guess what it is’. This can be really tricky sometimes, but great fun too! Do follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram for more.
It’s great to be able show some of our collections online. This has been especially true since Covid-19 has made visiting us in person more difficult for many. The pandemic has also been a huge challenge for the museum. We rely on the entrance income we receive from visitors, so the drop off in tourism has been an unprecedented challenge financially.
We’ve received some emergency funding, which we’re really grateful for – thank you Arts Council England! But it’s not quite enough to guarantee the future of the museum. So we’re launching a fundraising campaign in November, which we really hope the wonderful Cambridge community will rally behind. Watch this space for more news!
The Museum
Our wonderful building – the former White Horse Inn – survived the bubonic plague, the cholera pandemic, the Spanish flu, two world wars and even 1960s town planning, so we hope the museum will make it through the current crisis too.
If you haven’t visited the museum yet, as winter draws in, now might be the time! We hope to open as soon as lockdown is lifted and we’ve put in place a whole series of measures to make sure your visit is safe and enjoyable. If you can’t make it to the museum, why not check out our exciting Capturing Cambridge website – www.capturingcambridge.org? Think of it as Google maps, but for local history. If you’ve ever wondered about the history of a specific street or even a specific house in Cambridge, then this site might well have the answers you’re looking for. The site is absolutely free to use and updated regularly by a brilliant team of volunteers.
The Museum of Cambridge tells the stories of the people of Cambridge and holds a collection of curious and quirky objects. Have a go at guessing what these objects are!
