Labyrinth of the Minotaur

Blythe House, exterior

This is where I went today to view the objects I’ve been amending at work. Originally the headquarters for the Post Office Savings Bank, Blythe House now houses reserve objects for the Science Museum (and the V&A AND the British Museum). It is very big. The Science Museum has a short, but interesting, piece on it here.

I had a call from Karen and Farelli today (Farelli wanted to hear if my accent had changed at all) and, in the course of the conversation, I mentioned I was off to Blythe today. When Karen was working at the V&A she had to go there to photograph some quilts. She warned me it was a rabbit warren of rooms and corridors, stairs and hidden rooms. She was SO right!

What an amazing place. To work there would be a dream; a utopia. Except for the transport. Getting there on the Overground was fine. In fact, I’d never been on the Overground before and I have to say it sure beats the Tube into a cocked hat! It is a very easy connection from home because I changed at Clapham Junction rather than go all the way into town. This was a 10 minute wait between connections. More than manageable.

Fortunately, Mirinda had warned me that the Oyster touch pads were very well hidden. I think I’ve mentioned before this evil habit of London transport. Well, this is the worst one. Very well hidden it is. And then, at Kensington Olympia, it’s also hard to find – they do not have automatic gates. Still, these are minor annoyances. The worst thing was coming back. The Overground was rammed full and, by the time I arrived at Clapham, I managed to miss the train home by three minutes. This meant a wait of 30 minutes on a cold draughty station. Mirinda also reminded me of this as she had the same experience when she had to go to Shepherd’s Bush two years ago.

Anyway, I digress. That was all very unimportant. Yesterday Kevin gave me directions for getting to Blythe House and I dutifully turned up at 2pm for my tour. They were all just finishing their lunch and I met a whole load of people, mostly called John and then Nick led me away.

From the outset I have to say that any sense of direction is immediately destroyed. I have no idea where I went, where I was or how I returned. The place is amazing. Doors, carefully marked, lead off into rooms full of reserve collection objects.

First up, Nick took me to see some of the artworks I’ve been researching. He showed me some amazing pictures of some amazing people including an engraving of Charles Babbage which I’d not seen before. He looked quite the dandy!

I’ve just finished reading Bride of Science (about Ada Lovelace nee Byron) in which Babbage features heavily and recently I read Jacquard’s Web, again with a lot of Babbage. Both of these feature him when he was older, as most of the pictures I’ve seen of him do as well, so it was nice to see him looking young and eager.

From the portraits of inventors and scientists, passing the two huge busts turned towards the corner, looking as if they were in trouble but I suspect to save their noses from careless feet and trolleys, we moved into the print room to view railway engravings.

Way back, when I was studying for my undergraduate degree, I wrote an essay about early transport in England. I learned an awful lot about the first railway lines and trains as they superseded things like coastal shipping and canal boats. Imagine my delight when Nick produced the original drawing of the Stockton and Darlington Railway which boasts having the first (ever!) steam driven passenger carriage! Wikipedia has a nice entry here. One of the pictures I saw today can be seen here but it’s nowhere near as good as the original!

Having looked at lots of railway pictures, we moved on to ships (I should add that trains and boats are Nick’s passions) and came across a wonderful hand drawn panorama of Portsmouth harbour in the early 1800s. Wonderful stuff! But my time with Nick was drawing to a close and he had to hand me over to Kevin for the second part of my tour. Before we left this part of Blythe, I made him pose for a photograph.

Nick, my boss at the Science Museum, humouring me

We then walked upstairs to the office they work in where Kevin sat waiting for me. Most importantly I was handed a pair of latex gloves because, as he said “We’ll be touching things.” We said goodbye to Nick and he led me deeper into the maze, further below the ground, in a strange world of long dark corridors with blank nondescript doors, each locked and marked only with a location code.

First up we went to G24, the location for the objects I am currently entering (the masses of feeding cups, posset pots and breast relievers of recent posts). And guess what? We looked at (and handled) masses of them. I saw the various types of nipple shields – I really have to wonder how women kept them on – and marvelled at the weight of the lead one. This was like MIMSY records coming to life before my eyes. Plain and patterned feeding cups all jockeying for position in great cabinets.

When he opened a drawer containing lots of wooden boxes and opened one to reveal a breast reliever, I just had to snap a photograph!

Breast reliever in mahogany box

I thought this was it, but no, there was more!

He took me deeper into the bowels of the store. We saw Dr Frankenstein laboratories full of ancient medical equipment. We saw a room full of Roman artefacts, including the biggest plaster phallus I’ve ever seen. And after studying the Romans, I’ve seen a few. We saw…oh God, we saw so many things. It was heaven. I was like a kid in a sweet shop.

Fortunately Kevin was there to show me the way out, otherwise I’d be there forever, haunting the lost corridors like some mythical bull on a Greek island.

Truly a wonderful afternoon. Thank you Nick and Kevin!