So, the first thing to say about this place: it’s tricky to find. It’s tucked away on a mews, off a quiet side road, in a residential part of Notting Hill. There’s precious little sign-posting, so make sure you’ve got the location marked on your map. Also, there’s no bicycle parking outside the museum, in the mews or on the road. The best you’ll do is a lamp post or somebody’s house-front railings, both on Lonsdale Road.
Once you find Colville Mews, you’ll find the museum in the back left-hand corner:
No more pictures; the museum has a sign to suggest photography isn’t allowed. £5.80 to get in, and they harvest your details for Gift Aid.
The museum is a walk through time; you start in the late Victorian era and, as you follow the museum’s warren-like path, head towards the 1990s on a decade-by-decade basis. Each decade’s display comprises contemporaneous artefacts ranging from groceries to toys to household electrical goods, along with small notices for background information. If you welcome a diversion, there’s a number of amusing typographical errors and spelling mistakes on these signs. For example, a martian would: believe Edward V11 to be a monarch; consider wasdemonstrated to be a noun; and think the inaugural Wimbledon tennis championships were held in 1977. There were others; see how many you can spot.
Being a radio type, the display of wireless paraphernalia from the 1920s and 30s was of great interest. In modern parlance, radio really had a buzz about it back then. Board games (Listen In – The Great Wireless Game!), travel games (get the valves on the radio), a cat’s whisker receiver fashioned from a wooden cartoon cat and a Top Trumps-style game of transmitting stations (5XX, Daventry High Power, is worth 100 points) are particular highlights. There’s also a splendid display featuring tens of 1960s transistor radio sets, all in mint condition.
After you reach the 1990s, there’s a wonderful series of displays charting how products’ appearances have changed over the years. There’s evolutionary sequences of tens of household brands; Domestos, Pepsi and Coke, Dairy Milk, J&J Talcum Powder, Swan Vestas, and more are represented.
If your visit’s like mine, you’ll be there with a small group of old ladies and the odd transient design student. There’s no interactive exhibits, just well-lit, nicely-presented, artefacts. And it’s quite nice for that, really. Worth a look if you’ve an hour or two to kill in Notting Hill. Just don’t expect anything flash.
