Once again, huge thanks to @magnifyzoology.bsky.social for inventing and running #museum30!

For the final day of #museum30 I always choose the prompt “why museums?” And every year the challenge shows why - because museums are spaces for connection not only to the past but to the people who work within them!

#museum30 - why museums?

There are many reasons, but not enough character to list them all! For us, it's about connecting with our community, sharing those untold stories, fueling new discoveries, and being a space for everyone.

A view along the quire and nave of Westminster Abbey, taken from an elevated gallery

'The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.'
– Sir Winston Churchill

Thank you for following our #Museum30 posts and exploring the Abbey and its history with us.

#WhyMuseums

The last day of #Museum30 is #WhyMuseums.
Where else can you see and experience items from places, peoples and times other than your own?
They don't have to be grand or from thousands of miles away.
And yes, these are chamber pots with vintage loo roll. Makes you appreciate modern conveniences.

Painting from our collection of a Woman Police Sergeant in the 1919-1931 women's uniform, surrounded by children and pigeons. In the background are one of the Trafalgar Square lions and the central façade of the National Gallery.

Why police and crime museums? Because those two topics intersect with all other aspects of history - gender, sexuality, class, race, technology, faith, war ...
#Museum30 #WhyMuseums #WhyMuseums? #womenshistory

"Museums are for everyone to see, they are for people just like you and me"

For the final day of #Museum30 we are sharing this poem by friend of Barnsley Museums and volunteer at Darfield Museum, Ken Brookes #WhyMuseums

Reading about the past or watching documentaries are a great way to discover the past, but there's noting that compares to seeing the actual bowl a cook wrote his name on 19 years before Shakespeare was born...

#Museum30 #WhyMuseums

Red Polished jug from the Cyprus Museum

Day 30: Why museums? For the joy, wonder, excitement and curiosity that can be sparked by an encounter with an ancient object. #Museum30

It'sthe last day of #Museum30! So #WhyMuseums?
There are so many brilliant museums, big and small, full of wonder, heritage and connection. Even if you think museums aren't for you, everyone is welcome. And you never know what you'll discover.

Day 30 #museum30 Why museums? Because they are fun - and we all need a bit more fun right now #museum #museums

#Museum30 theme 30 is #WhyMuseums. Strapline for proposed development of Undercroft of Dunblane’s historic Leighton Library is “A Portal to Pages of the Past providing Perspective to the Present” - encapsulating why we exist, & what we hope to achieve in creating accessible…/👇

#Museum30 theme 30 is #WhyMuseums. Dunblane Museum exists to connect the community with its past, and bring alive stories from Dunblane’s centuries of history for visitors.

🚶Visit Dunblane Museum on Saturdays until 20 Dec
🕥 10.30am-4.30pm (last entry 4pm)
🆓 Free admission - donations invited

On my last trip to London I visited Canary Wharf, an area I’d not been to before, which gave me the perfect image for today’s prompt of ‘water’.

This Whale, made of 5 tonnes of plastic removed from the ocean, is by Jason Klimoski & Lesley Chang.

#museum30

Day 29 #museum30 #water one of my favourite exhibitions of 2025 was Secrets of the Thames - mud larking London’s lost treasures, at London Museum Docklands. Beautiful design, fascinating objects - who knew the sorts of things that get thrown into the Thames- and full of intriguing stories.

A blue and silver interactive exhibit consisting of three channels each containing a different type of waterwheel.

#museum30 Day 29 prompt is #water - without which Stanley Mills would never have been established, as the mills drew the power for it’s machines from the River Tay. Oor hands-on water interactive, which illustrates how the water powered the mill, is popular with bairns - and adults!!

Day 28: Water. This animated background creates the perfect setting for these ancient Cypriot model boats, at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden #Museum30

Today's #Museum30 theme is #Water.
We don't know who comes up with these themes but they must have a direct line to a Higher Power as it is very wet here today.

Colour photograph of a Met boat with a blue hull and white superstructure in the Pool of London, with Tower Bridge in the background. The launch is named Patrick Colquhoun after the magistrate who first formed the River Police in 1798.

London's river police was merged into the Met in 1839. Its beat has always included the stretch of the Thames bordering the City of London even though on land that area has its own police service, while City officers police Tower Bridge despite both its ends being on Met territory! #water #Museum30

The sun setting on Worsbrough Reservoir

Ducks swimming on Worsbrough res

An aerial view of the Worsbrough

A snow and ice covered worsbrough res

It's the penultimate day of #Museum30 and the prompt is #Water

Worsbrough Reservoir was built in 1804 to supply water to the new Worsbrough spur of the Dearne and Dove canal.

There are some people who refer to the Mary Rose as ""a pile of wet wood""

We aren't allowed to repeat the word we use to refer to those people...

#Museum30 #Water

#Museum30 theme 29 is #water. The “Water Drinkers" of Dunblane’s historic Leighton Library were tourists who travelled to drink from mineral springs of Cromlix, at Dunblane 1815-1833. Find out about these Water Drinkers www.leightonlibrary.org.uk/books-and-bo....
…/👇

#Museum30 theme 29 is #water. Allan Water is river through Dunblane, through centuries source of power for many mills. In 1600 there were 7 corn mills & 3 waulk mills but by 1800 most were spinning & weaving yarn & wool. Hand loom weaving was chief industry of Dunblane…/👇

For Day 29 of #Museum30 we present the Barkway Wagon Wash!
Part of the village's history as a major coaching town, coaches would drive through the #Water to clean their wheels and name plates before resuming their onward journeys. The parish council are currently fundraising to restore it.

It’s somehow already day 28 of #museum30 and the prompt is mural so here’s a brilliantly colourful one from @edenprojects.uk

Mural on the gable end of a building featuring a side profile view of a woman with dark brown hair wearing a shawl over her head, with fish on either side of her.

Ok @magnifyzoology.bsky.social - 1st time in 5 years of #museum30 you’ve got me stumped with a prompt! Cannae find a connection atween #mural & Stanley Mills! So here’s an image of a mural fae yin of ma learning projects. St Tenew on a Glesgae gable end thit we yaised for the Thaney’s Haven project.

Today's #Museum30 is #Mural.
We don't have any murals, so we thought we'd draw your attention to Muriel Y. Ishikawa. An extraordinary woman with 837 patents to her name who works with a huge range of areas about innovating and novel explosions.
We're intrigued by the idea of novels exploding?

The large octagonal Chapter House at Westminster Abbey. There is a high vaulted ceiling a tall stained glass windows.

Sunlight falling across medieval wall paintings in Westminster Abbey's Chapter House

Sunlight falling across the wall paintings in Westminster Abbey's Chapter House

Our glorious 13th-century Chapter House is decorated with wall paintings including scenes of the Apocalypse and the Last Judgement. The paintings were the gift of John of Northampton, a monk of Westminster from 1375-1404.

#Museum30 #Mural

A man in a Met helmet and tunic with a high collar with collar number stands with his hands behind his back. To the left is a woman in a Restoration dress and to the right architectural details and the back of a Victorian or Edwardian bus.

This London bobby crops up between Restoration ladies and Pearly Kings and Queens on a #mural entitled “The History of the Old Kent Road", completed on the North Peckham Civic Centre sixty years ago this year. It is by Adam Kossowski, a Polish refugee from Soviet oppression. #Museum30 #southLondon

‘Echoes’ mural on Mabgate in high summer

Day 28: Mural. I love this mural titled ‘Echoes’ on a pub in Mabgate, inspired by Burmantofts tiles and a tribute to the cultural heritage of Leeds, by the artist Add Fuel #Museum30