A Visit to the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre
The Neilston Men's Group visited the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC) in Nitshill today. The GMRC is basically the storehouse for the city museums' collections, when they're not on display at any of the venues, and is home to an impressive collection of around 1.4 million objects, from animals to armour, fine art to fossils, and much more. With only 2% of the collections on display in museums at any one time, you begin to realize just how many objects are stored here - it's huge!
A Coal Merchant's LorryThe Resource Centre is made up of 17 environmentally controlled storage "pods", each with a different theme and collection, and visitors can explore these pods through a wide range of tours, talks and activities.
We opted for a one hour taster tour, which meant we only had time to visit two of the pods.
Grant, our guide, took us through the warren of corridors to the transportation pod, which contained everything from penny farthing cycles to more modern sports cars, prams to steam engines, motor bikes to lorries and so on. All in all, a varied mix of vehicles, which reminded me a bit of the exhibits in the Riverside Museum so it's likely these were part of that place's stock to draw on.
Suits of Armour
The second pod we visited, via a huge goods elevator, was full of arms and armour and Grant proved very knowledgeable about almost everything in there. It was a vast repository of historical arms (guns, rifles, pistols, swords, daggers, maces, etc.) and many suits of armour.
Grant, our guide, took us through the warren of corridors to the transportation pod, which contained everything from penny farthing cycles to more modern sports cars, prams to steam engines, motor bikes to lorries and so on. All in all, a varied mix of vehicles, which reminded me a bit of the exhibits in the Riverside Museum so it's likely these were part of that place's stock to draw on.
Suits of ArmourThe second pod we visited, via a huge goods elevator, was full of arms and armour and Grant proved very knowledgeable about almost everything in there. It was a vast repository of historical arms (guns, rifles, pistols, swords, daggers, maces, etc.) and many suits of armour.
The only downside to having so many objects is that there are no fancy wee descriptive plaques or notes on any of them. Some have handwritten tags attached, mostly there are just reference numbers. You really do need a guide to tell you about what you're looking at.
I imagine we'll try and get back to visit some more the pods but, until then, there's a good virtual tour online of you want to see what's on offer:
I imagine we'll try and get back to visit some more the pods but, until then, there's a good virtual tour online of you want to see what's on offer:
Just to finish with a bit of humour, here's a sign displayed on the wall of one of the many corridors:
Gonnae No Dae That!
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