Science Museum

Treasures of London – Apollo 10 command module…

by exploringlondon

Apollo-10-Command-Module,-c.Science-Museum-and-the-National-Air-and-Space-Museum,-Smithsonian-InstitutionLondon isn’t particularly known for its association with the space program – at least, not that we know of – but the Science Museum in South Kensington gives you the chance to get up close and personal with a piece of NASA’s history.

Located in the Making the Modern World gallery is the Apollo 10 command module, on long-term loan from the Smithsonian in the US. Launched in May, 1969, it carried three astronauts – Tom Stafford, John Young and Gene Cernan – around the moon in what was a dress rehearsal for the Apollo 11 moon landing which followed in July that year.

Stafford and Cernan descended in the accompanying lunar module to within 14 kilometres of the moon’s surface before rejoining the command module. The command module had the call sign ‘Charlie Brown’ (named for the character created by Charles M Schulz) while the lunar module was ‘Snoopy’.

The command module travelled some 500,000 miles during its eight day mission and reached a speed in excess of 24,790 mph on its return to earth, faster than any crewed vehicle since. The module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on 26th May and the crew were recovered by the USS Princeton.

WHERE: Science Museum, Exhibition Road, South Kensington (nearest Tube station South Kensington);  WHEN: 10am to 6pm daily (7pm during school holidays); COST: free; WEBSITE: www.sciencemuseum.org.uk.

PICTURE: © Science Museum and the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution 

This Week In London – Kenwood House reopens; robot safari at the Science Museum; Kew Gardens illuminates for Christmas; Vivien Leigh at the NPG; and more…

by exploringlondon

• Kenwood House in north London is being reopened to the public today following a £5.95 million restoration project which has seen the library returned to what Scottish architect Robert Adam had intended it to be. The project, which saw the Hampstead property closed since March last year, has also seen the restoration of three other Robert Adam-designed rooms – the entrance hall, Great Stairs and antechamber or entrance to the library – as well as the redecoration of four rooms in 18th century style, repainting of the exterior and the repair of the home’s roof – a job aimed at protecting the rooms and its stellar

Kenwood-House-Librarycollection of artworks by the likes of Rembrandt and Vermeer. English Heritage has also endeavoured to make the property more homely, replacing ticket desks and rope barriers with an open fire, warm rugs and leather couches on which visitors can relax. The library (pictured) was built and decorated to Adam’s designs between 1767 and 1770 as part of a wider remodelling of the villa for its owner Lord Chief Justice William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield. Redecorated many times since, it was restored in the 1960s but this redecoration was later found to be inaccurate. The Caring for Kenwood restoration project, which has also seen restoration of the Kenwood Dairy, was funded by a £3.89 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund as well as support from the Wolfson Foundation and other donors. To coincide with the reopening, a new app exploring Kenwood House has been released which can be downloaded for free from the iTunes store. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/kenwood/. PICTURE: English Heritage/Patricia Payne.

• Head out on a “robot safari” this weekend with a special free event at Science Museum in South Kensington. Robot SafariEU, part of Eurobotics week, features 13 biometric robots from across Europe including an underwater turtle robot, a shoal of luminous fish robots, a robotic cheetah cub and Pleurobot, a robotic salamander. Roboticists from across Europe will be on hand to help visitors interact with the bots. Suitable for all ages, the event kicked off on Wednesday night and runs again on the weekend. Admission is free but timed tickets are required. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/RobotSafari.

• A memorial to author, scholar and apologist CS Lewis was dedicated at Westminster Abbey last Friday – the 50th anniversary of his death. Conducting the service, the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, said Lewis was “one of the most significant Christian apologists of the 20th century” and the author of stories that had “inspired the imagination and faith of countless readers and film-goers”. Douglas Gresham, younger stepson of Lewis, read from the author’s book, The Last Battle, at the service. The memorial is located in Poet’s Corner in the abbey’s south transept. For more see www.westminster-abbey.org.

• A Blue Plaque commemorating Al Bowlly – described as “Europe’s most popular crooner and famous radio and record star” – will be unveiled at his home in Charing Cross Road this week. Bowlly, who lived between 1899 and 1941, was the voice beyond songs like Goodnight Sweetheart and The Very Thought Of You. The English Heritage Blue Plaque will be unveiled at Charing Cross Mansions, 26 Charing Cross Road – his home during the pinnacle of his career. For more, see www.english-heritage.co.uk/discover/blue-plaques/.

• Kew Gardens has opened its gates after dark for the first time with a “captivating show of lights, sound and landscape” this festive season. A mile long illuminated trail, created in partnership with entertainment promoter Raymond Gubbay, will take visitors’ through the garden’s unique tree collections, kicking off at Victoria Gate where a Christmas village (and Santa’s Woodland Grotto) is located. The gardens will be open every Thursday to Sunday until 23rd December and then be open every night from 26th December to 4th January from 4.45pm to 10pm. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.kew.org/Christmas.

VivienLeigh• Actress Vivien Leigh is the star of a new exhibition opening on Saturday at the National Portrait Gallery. Starring Vivien Leigh: A Centenary Celebration tells her story with a focus on her Academy Award-winning role in 1939’s Gone With The Wind. The display features more than 50 portraits of Leigh by the likes of Cecil Beaton, Angus McBean and Madame Yevonde – many of which have never been exhibited in the gallery before – and a selection of memorabilia including magazine covers, vintage film stills and press books. Among the photos will be a newly acquired image of Leigh and her husband, Laurence Olivier, taken by British photojournalist Larry Burrows at a garden party in 1949 (pictured), along with two rarely seen portraits of Leigh – one taken on the set of The School for Scandal by Vivienne in 1949 and the other by Paul Tanqueray in 1942. The exhibition will be held in Room 33 and runs until 20th July. Admission is free. For more, see www.npg.org.uk. PICTURE:  Copyright – Larry Burrows Collection 2013.

This Week in London – The Hadron Collider at the Science Museum; John Richard Arthur honoured; Christmas at Carnaby; and South American gold at the British Museum…

by exploringlondon

First up, we’ve changed the name of the Thursday update of what’s happening in London to This Week in London which we think better describes what the column’s about. So, to some events we think you might be interested in…

• An exhibition that transports visitors to the heart of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) opened at the Science Museum yesterday. In the first exhibition of its kind, Collider offers visitors the closest thing to actually being at the CERN particle physics laboratory, blending theatre, video and sound to enable visitors to explore the control room, meet virtual scientists and engineers and see inside a huge underground ‘detector’ cavern. There’s also the chance to follow the journey of particle beams as they race around the 27 kilometre long LHC tunnel (incidentally about the same length as the Circle Line) and the exhibition’s highlight is a wrap around projection which takes watchers from an enormous experiment cavern to the heart of a particle collision. On show will be artefacts from the actual LHC including a 15 metre magnet used to steer the particle beam and objects from the museum’s collection including the accelerator used by Cockcroft and Walton to split the atom in 1932. Admission charge applies. Runs until 6th March. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk.

• John Richard Arthur, a former Mayor of Battersea and the first black man to hold senior public office in London, was honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque this week. The plaque was unveiled by Cr Angela Graham, the Mayor of Wandsworth, at his former home at 55 Brynmaer Road in Battersea – his residence during the major milestones of his political career. Elected on 10th November 1913, Archer lived at the home from about 1898 to about 1918. He has been described as a “key figure in the story of the Black contribution in Britain in the early part of the Twentieth century”. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/.

• Christmas comes to the West End this afternoon with the Carnaby Christmas Shopping Party taking place in 13 streets around the iconic fashion strip. More than 100 shops, restaurants and bars are delivering 20 per cent discounts and there’s also complimentary drinks, music, talks on fashion trends and the chance for the “best dressed” to win goodie bags. The party runs from 5pm to 9pm with the Christmas lights turned on at 6pm. Head to www.carnaby.co.uk for more.

El-Dorado• On Now: Beyond El Dorado: power and gold in ancient Colombia. This exhibition in Room 35 of the British Museum features items including ceramics and stone necklaces taken from Lake Guatavita near modern Bogota (The phrase El Dorado, “the golden one”, actually refers to a ritual which took place at the lake in which a newly elected leader of the Muisca people was covered in powdered gold before diving into the lake and washing it off to emerge as the new leader). They are just some of the more than 300 items in the display which come from the Museo del Oro Bogata – one of the best collections of pre-Hispanic gold in the world – as well as the British Museum’s own collection. Other objects include large scale gold masks, a painted Muisca textile, avian pectorals and necklaces with feline claws and one of the few San Agustin stone sculptures held outside Colombia. The exhibition, sponsored by Julius Baer, runs until 23rd March. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org. PICTURE: Anthropomorphic bat pectoral, Tairona, gold alloy, AD900-1600. Copyright Museo del Oro, Banco de la Republica, Colombia.