The Titanic in Southampton: a visit to the SeaCity museum

Last week I found myself in Southampton for the day (as you do). My first thought was that I must go to the Tudor House (as some of you might know, I love history - and especially the 16th Century). Unfortunately, this is closed on Fridays - and of course that's the day I was there. So, I moved onto plan B, to find out about the Titanic, and it was a good decision...

[caption id="attachment_4533" align="alignnone" width="1200"] This is the Tudor House - it certainly looked lovely from the outside![/caption]

Instead of the Tudor house (which I did visit to see it from the outside), I went to the lovely SeaCity Museum, which is a real gem of a place. It has a number of permanent exhibits as well as a little shop and lovely cafe. Helpfully, it also has lockers for large bags (you have to pay for these, but mine only cost a few pounds).

The exhibit which caught my attention, and which I spent a lovely hour and a half or so being fascinated by, was one on the Titanic. This was extremely well done, educational, interactive and sad. Plus, it was definitely worth the £8.50 entrance fee (£6 for kids).

The Titanic set off from Southampton

Although you may associate the Titanic with Belfast, it actually set off from Southampton. This means that many of those who worked on the ship lived in the Southampton area. In fact almost 409 of the ships crew lived in Chapel and Northam, two of the poorest distracts in Southampton, and of the 897 crew members, three quarters were living in Southampton in the days before the ship set sail.

Bringing the people to life

The exhibition is very good at personalising the experience. It gives you background of a number of those who were on the "unsinkable" ship, from the second officer, Charles Herbert Lightoller, to the first class Stewardesss Mabel Bennett, who was only 30 then, but already a widow, with a young daughter she had to leave behind (of course, she was paid less then than the male stewards). You don't know what happened to all these people until near the end, by which time you have built up a relationship with them. It's very clever.

Life in Southampton in 1912

The exhibit begins with an explanation of what it was like in Southampton at that time - the divide between rich and poor, the ongoing strikes and the numbers of unemployed (17,000 in April 1912). Many of the locals had never been to sea before, but were very happy about the opportunities that the Titanic brought.

You then walk across a bridge as if you are walking onto the Titanic - and there's sound effects to make it all sound that much more realistic.

[caption id="attachment_4535" align="alignnone" width="1200"] A carved wooden panel from the top of the Olympic ship's grand staircase - the Titanic had one just like it[/caption]

There are clothes to try on and people to find out about, as well as letters from those on the ship and details of all the provisions on board. There is also a beautiful recreation of what the grand staircase looked like - just like the film in fact!

You learn about lots of little details (first class passengers had use of a lift to go from deck to deck) and can also try out shovelling coal (hard work - I was not very good!) and steering the ship.

Tragedy struck

[caption id="attachment_4536" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Steward Sidney Sedunary was carrying this watch in this pocket - it's stopped at 1.50, about half an hour before the Titanic sinks. His watch was recovered when his body was found.[/caption]

It was just before midnight on April 14 1912 that the Titanic struck the iceberg. No one was prepared for what followed - and more than 1500 people died when the ship sank, in less than three hours.

The exhibition is particularly good at giving you an idea of what happened and the scale of the deaths. There is a room where you can sit and listen to the audio of those who survived and it's very moving. For example, you hear Eva Hart, who was then 7, say of her father: "He told me to hold my mummy's hand and be a good girl and that was it. I never saw him again."

After being "on" the ship, you go into a courtroom where you can listen to the voices of actors recreating the hearing into what happened and some of the experts asking questions. Some of these questions and answers are shocking - the lookout man saying there were no binoculars on board, and that if there had been he could have seen the iceberg earlier and the ship could have got out of the way. There were also no searchlights. There are newspapers from the time to look at and telegrams giving both good and bad news "regret, not saved," one widow is told.

[caption id="attachment_4537" align="alignnone" width="1200"] This map contains red dots which mark the address of a member of the Titanic's crew who was lost when the ship sank[/caption]

The exhibit is extremely good and definitely captured the interest of both adults and children making their way around it. I felt it gave a different view on what happened on the Titanic and made it personal and extremely moving. I went round more slowly than if I had been with a young child, but the children I saw did seem engaged in it all, especially the interactive parts.

More Southampton history

SeaCity has more than this exhibit though - there is one on Southampton as a Gateway to the World, which gives you background on the many people who have come to the area from all over the world (this is excellent) and another on Southampton's Stories, which showcases different topics such as work, pastimes and working life. It's a lovely museum, very hands-on, and I would recommend it wholeheartedly.

The SeaCity museum is located right near the historic clock tower, Havelock Road, Southampton, SO14 7FY. Its the BBC South studios.

It's open 10-5pm seven days a week and costs £8.50 per adult, or £25 for a family ticket - two adults and up to three children.

More English Cities:

What to do in Norwich (by all of us).

Beautiful Lincoln

A football trip to Manchester

Bangs, berets and being undercover at the Royal Gunpowder Mills

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!

[caption id="attachment_678" align="aligncenter" width="768"] 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.

[caption id="attachment_676" align="aligncenter" width="768"] 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.

[caption id="attachment_679" align="aligncenter" width="940"] 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.

[caption id="attachment_680" align="aligncenter" width="940"] 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.