Quote: Imperial War Museum, Salford Quays

During our weekend away with friends in Altringham we spent the day in Salford Quays visiting this museum and the Lowry centre.

We arrived at the Quays by train which cost us £10 for four adults from Altringham for a day rover ticket which we thought was brilliant value. If you come by car then there are plenty of parking spaces but I suspect it probably isn’t cheap.

Like the London Imperial War Museum this one is free to enter. From the outside it looks very modern and sleek. It is built to represent different shards of the world breaking apart as the result of conflict and war. Inside the feeling is one of space and the displays are just so well set out and displayed in such a wide variety of ways.

The very first exhibit we came across was a Harrier Jump Jet and I was quite surprised at how small they are. It is a full sized aircraft and standing beside or under it I felt quite small but I still thought they might actually be bigger than this one was.

The next display was just a window with an object to represent every conflict the UK had been involved in during the 20th century. It was interesting how such simple things like a letter or some ones’ hat could be so poignant.

Exhibits varied from the large ones such as a blown up car from Iraq or the large piece of metal from the Twin Towers through to the tubes with smells from inside an air raid shelter that you could lift and sniff in order to guess what it might be.

I was specially moved by the recordings of real people in some of the areas. One woman described how as a young girl in Berlin one day she had gone out and looked up into a tree to see what looked like bit of rubbish that turned out to be bits of a British pilot blown out of his plane. She never felt the same about war since.

The section on women in the war was also very inspiring. How women who had previously been housewives were able to turn their hand to farm work, munitions factory work and even complex aircraft manufacture. Then when the men returned they had to return to being housewives once again.

At specific time in the main exhibition area all the lights are dimmed and there is a film show with lights and sound telling about life in the cities in WWII. There was a mixture of archive film and interviews with people who had lived through the war; the whole thing was very well done, inspiring and moving too. This was followed by a performance by a lady acting the role of a lady who worked in a munitions factory who had sent her children away to be evacuated. She was excellent, very convincing and she even sang an old wartime song.

I was impressed with the many and varied exhibits. One was like a huge filing cabinet and some of the ‘drawers’ opened. It was a drawer that represented a person; just a normal everyday person who had lived through the wartime. There were a few of their personal passions which helped to tell a bit about them and their role or life in that time. Some of the people had died and some survived but it was all quite emotional seeing these very personal passions telling their stories.

THE RESTAURANT
We decided that we needed a coffee so made our way out towards the coffee shop. This is also a pretty large area with great views over the canal towards the Lowry building. The place was clean and very modern with large tables and plenty of chairs. You could have had a selection of hot meals from fish pie to lasagne through to shepherd’s pie and similar dishes. Also on offer were a number of different cakes, chocolate and biscuits as well as coffee, tea and hot chocolate and cold drinks too.

THE TOILETS
These were downstairs and there were quite a number so we had no queue even in the ladies. They were clean and there were also disables ones just nearby too. On this same level was the inevitable shop.

THE SHOP
This did have items that were typical of every gift shop, pencil, rubbers, and magnets etc. There were lots of war memorabilia in the form of replica ration books, gas masks, model aircraft and many, many books about the war, recipe books using recipes from the time and a lot of really interesting items to bring the war time to this generation.

WOULD I RECOMMEND?
Yes indeed. It is many years since I have been to the Imperial War museum in London so i won’t try and compare them but I was very impressed with the presentation of the exhibits and how very family friendly they had made the place. There were many hands on exhibits and the way the other items were presented really made them feel real. One exhibit had a stuffed toy dog made from an army blanket. It was made by a soldier for his superior officer’s daughter so that he could have some time off. I bet he never thought it would be see all these years later in a museum.

The museum is huge and in reality you could spend an entire day exploring the different exhibits but we spent about three hours in there and saw but a small part of it. There was a special exhibition on war correspondents and some of our friends stayed and explored that rather than going over to the Lowry Building. They said it was one of the best exhibitions they have seen and it was a very moving experience.r

This would be a perfect place to take a class of children learning about any war time during the 20th century. I would say that if your child is interested or is learning about any of these periods in history a visit to this museum will certainly make it more real to them through the many different exhibits

Quote: Introduction

I remember going to the Imperial War Museum in London when I was a child and having a great time, so when I discovered there was one here in the North, I decided to pay a visit.

The Imperial War Museum North is housed in an obscure, but interesting, looking building and is basically made up of two floors:

The ground floor is the entrance and includes the gift shop, a dining room (where you can eat your packed lunch, if you've brought one), a cloak room, learning studio and the elevator to the Air Shard (which is a 29 metre high viewing platform, from which you can see most of Manchester).

The second floor is where the exhibition rooms are. There are two; the Main Exhibition Space which contains the permanent display of war artefacts and the Special Exhibitions gallery which contains the temporary exhibitions. When I visited the temporary exhibition was a display of female war artists' work, which was well worth the visit alone.

The Main Exhibition Space is also where they present the award-winning Big Picture Show, which is a 360 degree audio-visual experience showing different aspects of the war in approximately 15 minute shows, every hour.

My Opinion

The museum is fantastic, in my opinion. It's really well laid out and easy to work your way around. There is an even balance of visual, emotional and informative display items that makes it suitable for the whole family.

The Museum is presented in a big open space, that is easy to wander round in a logical order, following the timeline that runs around the edge of the room covering 1914 to the present day in digestible periods - World War I, The inter-war period, World War II, After the war until 1990 and 1990 to the present day. This is particularly good because you generally think of the World Wars when you consider wars in general, but it gives a interesting and thought-provoking look at the wars of this generation, which are often over-looked (by me anyway).

There are some great 'large objects' which break up the educational bits nicely. The most impressive is the Harrier Jump-jet hanging in the entrance. Also on display are a Trabant estate car and a T34 Russian tank. You obviously can't climb on the objects, but you can get a good look at the insides of them and there are descriptions of them and quotes from people who've used them.

There are also a number of small rooms (called Silos) which each display a different aspect of war, such as Women and War (which has souvenirs that notable women from each war have collected) and Experience of War (which is laid out like a living room and contains games, newspapers and foods from the various wars).

The museum is very child-friendly, with plenty of opportunities for children to learn whilst having fun at the action stations. These include learning how to crack codes and dressing up in camouflage. Whilst we were there, there were many children wandering round with smiles on their faces as they explored the various exhibits and enjoyed the object handling sessions hosted by the museum staff.

By far and away the best bit of the museum though was the Big Picture display. Every hour, the main room goes dark and images and sounds of the war are displayed on the walls, giving you a very real experience of the war through the eyes of the people who experienced it first-hand. The presentation we watched was 'Children and War', which gave the accounts of children from all the countries that have been involved in wars throughout the last century. It was a very moving account and I found it very interesting to see how war affects the people involved.

Overall, I would definitely say that the museum is worth a visit and a donation. It is suitable for people of all ages and gives a thought-provoking and moving account of events that are happening around the world even now.

Other information

The museum is located on the riverside at The Quays in Salford and is easily accessible by road, car and train.

The museum itself is free to enter, although you do have to visit the entry desk to 'check in' where a member of staff politely enquires whether you'd 'like to help the museum to expand and improve by making a valuable donation of £3.95' (for which price you get an all-singing, all-dancing guide book!). We gave the guide book a miss, saying that we'd make our own donation. There are plenty of donation boxes around the museum and, to be honest, you don't need a guide book, as the museum is quite small and the exhibits well-labelled.

There is a great gift shop where you can buy from an extensive range of war literature, museum souvenirs and war-inspired items such as ration cook-books and foods.

The museum is open seven days a week from 10am until 6pm (March to September) and 10am until 5pm (November to February). Last admission is 30 minutes prior to closing.

Whilst it probably only takes a couple of hours to explore the museum, it's easy to make it part of a day out, as there is an outlet mall, theatre and plenty of restaurants close by, as well as Old Trafford (if you're that way inclined, which I'm definitely not!).
From journals Free Things to do in the North West of England , A Weekend in Manchester

Quote: Daniel Libeskind designed this building, basing it on a smashed hollow globe. It is set very impressively in the docks of the now retired Manchester Ship Canal, once one of the busiest ports in England. I love approaching from the Lowrie (where there's a large carpark) and crossing the footbridge to get to it. The building seems to be built slightly off true vertical which makes the climb up the first stair case a little virtiginous. Every time I go, I find another little gem of history, always very personal to the previous owner.

There are slide shows and film clips which are very cleverly edited and complimented with sound effects in the main gallery which are projected onto various walls around you.(Sounds odd, it's a little difficult to describe but well worth watching) Smaller children might find these a little loud and frightening but older ones seem to be fascinated. It has a very good website: http://north.iwm.org.uk/

From journals Pub Culture in Manchester

Quote: This museum, or rather more technically it is a branch of the Imperial War Museum, opened in 2002.

The best way to reach it is over the footbridge from the Lowry centre, access to which is described on its own page. The architect responsible for the design is Daniel Libeskind who has been associated internationally with some of the most exciting of recent projects. The idea of the exterior is a shattered world and three shards being put together. Whatever it is , it is an exciting use of modern materials and you would learn more about it by going to http://www.iwm.org.uk/north/0101.html than I could hope to describe.

Entry is through the highest shard where there is a lift up to a viewing gallery. Un fortunately this was not functioning when I visited so this is still a treat in store. I have little doubt that it gives a magnificent view.

The main exhibitions could be said to be an anti-war museum, the only type which I could ever really commend. It is geared entirely to the 20th century and concentrates on the effects of war. Much is in darkness for about 15 minutes in each hour when the big picture is being shown. There are three which are shown in rotation so that it would take 2¼ hours to see all of them even if you arrived for the start of one! As we arrived a film on 'Why war?' was just finishing.

The whole is divided into a number of parts representing the different phases of the 20th century; 1st world war, inter-war years, 2nd world war, cold war and the end of the century.

Then there are a number of themes illustrated such as Women and war, Science and war and Legacy of war. There is nothing about the glory of war!

Entry is free.

From journals Roman times to 21st Century