Jess says: A few weeks ago, Robert, dad and I visited The Royal Gunpowder Museum in Waltham Abbey. We were to be undercover judges for the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Award 2014, and as we walked in, I felt exhilarated. Having had a thorough look at the Kids in Museums Manifesto in the car, the three of us had a lot to look out for. In fact, I actually felt like a secret agent as we got our tickets from the booth!
After being in the museum for less than half an hour, we realised that we were in somewhere very special indeed. When we entered the main exhibition, we were personally greeted by a man who told us what we could do, where to go and the history of the mills. I was extremely impressed, and rather excited - this kind of thing does not normally happen when you go to museums!
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Trying out the guns...[/caption]
The exhibition in itself was wonderful; it was really interactive, and there was loads to touch, twist and watch. Something I especially enjoyed was learning how gunpowder is made with an interactive screen. I loved how many things we were allowed to touch, especially when we went into the armoury. There were loads of guns to hold and hats to try on.
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At The Royal Gunpowder Mills, Waltham Abbey[/caption]
Robert says: There was so much more to the Royal Gunpowder Mills than just the main exhibition. There was so much to do that I can’t pick my favourite thing! A bit that I really enjoyed was the first activity that we did, which was creating our own paper rockets and launching them. We followed instructions on the table before walking into a big field and sticking our rockets onto something which we pumped up. When we pressed the green button, it shot off into the air. We aimed to hit the target, which was a big rocket. My one didn’t go anywhere near it!
We went to two science shows, which were fantastic and really cool. The first one that we saw was called “Kaboom!” and it was aimed at little kids, but I still liked lots of the experiments. The person who ran it was really nice and friendly, and there were lots of bangs.
The second one was my favourite. It was a pyrotechnics show and it was supposed to be outside, but it was raining, so they cleverly managed to bring it inside. The show involved fire, flames, explosions and lots of covering our ears. I liked it because we got really close to the fire and I really liked the machines that they used.
The Nerf and the Air Soft firing ranges were awesome! For the Nerf range, we were given two minutes inside a little room and had a Nerf gun with eight bullets. We shot the guns at the targets, which were balloons, monsters and moons. The Air Soft range wasn’t as fun for me, because it was really hard to get to grips with the gun. We were given a really big gun and goggles, and we had to shoot it at tiny targets. Although it was difficult, it was still lots of fun.
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We loved the experiments[/caption]
Jess says: We all had a brilliant time at the Royal Gunpowder Mills. There was so much to do, and we haven’t even mentioned all of it in this post! There was a fascinating film theatre, loads of experiments to try out and even a night vision bomb disposal, where we put on night vision glasses and had to find all of the bombs.
What made this museum so special was that everyone was really friendly, and willing to talk to us. The staff shared their own experiences, and were happy to answer questions and give us extra information. This was something which does not always happen at museums, but it made our experience so much more unique and interesting.
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Looking good in the berets![/caption]
Overall, we all had an amazing time and loved being undercover judges. Not only did we feel like sleuths and thought more about the experience afterwards than we would usually do, it also encouraged us to go to a place we wouldn’t normally visit, and ended up loving! It was a fantastic day.
The Royal Gunpowder Mills is open daily during school & bank Holidays and also has events for Halloween and Guy Fawkes.
A family ticket for two adults and two children costs £30.60. If you book online for single tickets, you get 10 percent off, so it costs £8.55 for adults and £6.75 for kids.
Interested in living history? Check out what we thought of Beamish. Labels: Blog, days out in the UK, guns, museums, museums in the UK, Royal Gunpowder Mills, UK