Brighton Museum Lab

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We recently asked visitors to draw their favourite buildings in Brighton and Hove. Here is a small selection of their wonderful contributions!

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Herbert Samuel Toms, one of Brighton Museum’s most influential curators, was a keen folklorist. In his 42 years as the museum’s Curator of Archaeology, he amassed a fascinating collection of ‘lucky stones’ and research regarding their use.

This photograph was catalogued, digitised and repacked in Brighton Museum’s MuseumLab today. Captioned ‘Photograph of “Shepherds’ Crowns” on window-sill of cottage at Patching near Worthing’, it displays one such custom that was still practised across southern England during Toms’s lifetime. Shepherds’ crowns are ornate conically-shaped fossil sea urchins that include species of Micraster, Echinocorys and Conulus. Often found in chalky soils, they would be ploughed up by farm labourers and placed on the windowsills of houses, bringing good luck to their inhabitants.

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This slide from our Natural Sciences collection hosts a member of the genus Tenthredo, more commonly known as Sawflies. These delightful creatures are said to be the closest living form to the ancestor of all Hymenopterans (ants, bees, wasps and sawflies) and first appeared in the fossil record around 250 million years ago in the Triassic. They are very similar in appearance to wasps but they lack both “wasp-like waist” and a stinger. Instead of a stinger, female Sawflies possess a saw-like egg-laying tube or ovipositor, which they use to saw through plant tissue in order to deposit their eggs. This ovipositor is harmless however; due to its’ appearance is often mistaken by humans for a stinger.

Come down to Brighton MuseumLab's 'Drop-In and Do' sessions to discover more hidden gems from our Natural Science collection and learn how you can help to look after them with us! Every Wednesday in Brighton Museum 2-5pm!  

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A macro photograph of a complete, or ‘entire’, specimen of Amphiporus lactifloreus - which unfortunately has no common name. It is a species of ringworm found not only in the phylum Nemertea, but around the Mediterranian Sea, the state of Maine, and commonly around the British Isles living among stones and seaweed on the shore.

In life, this ringworm is usually a pleasant white or pinkish colour with a translucent stripe down its middle caused by the guts, the whole creature growing up to eight centimeters lengthwise. Most impressively of all, this carnivorous ringworm has a needle-esque proboscis which can be as long as its body! Extending this out like a spear allows it to suck the juicy innards out of prey that is too big to swallow whole, letting the ringworm devour creatures as large as itself when a measly protozoa just isn’t enough.

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On Friday 27th January, MuseumLab will be hosting a special Focus on Finds archaeology drop-in day!

Members of Brighton & Hove Archaeological Society (BHAS) and Edwin Wood, Finds Liaison Officer for Sussex, will be present to help identify visitors’ archaeological finds and discuss Brighton & Hove’s ancient heritage. Alongside them, MuseumLab will be showcasing some of the on-going work of staff, volunteers and researchers including digitisation of Greek, Roman and other coinage in the Museum’s collections.

You can also find out more about the Saltdean cinerary urn and its contents, pictured above, discovered by two boys in 1910.

MuseumLab will be open to visitors between 10am and 1pm, reopening at 2pm until 4pm. We look forward to seeing you!

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Now that the days are getting longer (finally!), we bring you a time related rediscovery...

This minute hand from the clock on the side of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery was found lurking at the back of a curator’s cupboard. Simply labelled ‘Hand from clock on museum north elevation (Church St)’, a few of us here in MuseumLab wondered whether it had been replaced - clearly not as the images above show!

For the time being (no pun intended), a Collections Assistant has catalogued it onto the Museum’s collections management system and placed it in a store. Should anyone have any information as to when the hand disappeared from the clock face, we’d like to hear from you.

And as a final note, we always recommend looking up to fully admire the built architecture around the Royal Pavilion Estate, all looking particularly splendid in the winter sunshine.

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Merry Christmas from everyone at MuseumLab!

These Christmas greeting cards are housed within a scrapbook and are Victorian in date. They are described as appearing to be ‘the work of one firm as they are varieties of similar kinds’ according to the original accession register entry. They were donated during March 1941 by Henry D Roberts MBE (1870-1951), Director of Brighton Public Library, Museum & Art Galleries, when he and his family were living in custodians of Preston Manor.

The scrapbook is currently with Royal Pavilion & Museums’ Paper Conservator after a Collections Assistant noticed that its pages have become quite brittle and friable. Work will be undertaken to stabilise this deterioration.

More information regarding Henry D Roberts and his contribution to Brighton and its cultural institutions can be found here.

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Alongside visitors to Brighton Museum & Art Gallery’s Subversive Objects Discovery Day last Saturday, we welcomed students from ACS Hillingdon International School, Uxbridge, to MuseumLab. The school’s students regularly visit Brighton to attend workshops at local print studio Ink Spot Press. Continuing their sketching down on Brighton seafront in the afternoon, we couldn’t allow them to leave without taking a closer look at their amazing drawings!

A number of visitors like to sketch objects on display in the Lab which include taxidermy specimens, ceramics and other objects of intrigue in our Cabinet of Curiosities. Plenty to inspire the artist in everyone!

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We’re delving into subversion across Brighton Museum & Art Gallery today. 

Here’s a small selection of objects on display in MuseumLab, including: 

Garments designed by the Queen of punk fashion Vivienne Westwood

Lily Allen’s ‘Bambi Killer’ dress

Cheeky Regency caricatures

A chamber pot given as a wedding gift with ‘Keep me Clean and use me well / And what I see I will not tell’  inscribed inside

Portuguese dishes with grotesque models of frogs, moths and millipedes

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Our activities table needs populating with creatures from the depths, critters that roam on terra firma and others that soar up in the skies! Add to our collage with cut-outs and drawings of animals, inspired by those on display in MuseumLab. We’ll post a selection of them here as it is added to.

The Lab is open to the public every week from 2pm-5pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons for ‘Drop In & Do’ sessions.

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Currently catalouging bird skins from the Booth museum in Museum Lab whilst listening to each ones bird song and learning their Latin name.  Bliss!

RSPB Blue tit birdsong

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Precious Wendletrap: Epitorium scalare

During the 16th and 17th centuries this shell was much sought after by collectors, fantastic prices often being paid for large examples. Such was the demand that the Chinese resorted to making rice-paste fakes! It was later discovered to be a fairly common shell! It occurs in the Indo-Pacific region. 

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A female common pheasant on display at Brighton Museum. Come see her and other animals in person at the Museum Lab!

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Wild Wednesdays at Brighton Museum

In conjunction with the RSPB, Wednesdays have gone wild at Brighton Museum, in the gardens and the MuseumLab! Families are invited to look for birds, insects and other critters in the Pavilion Gardens, before bringing their pictures to MuseumLab to find out more about the creatures they've seen.

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New Volunteers on the Booth Collections

Two new volunteers started work on our collections today. After a crash course in database and photography they started carrying out work on the collections in MuseumLab, allowing the public to get involved with the process. Both Sarah and Stephen showed the public how to photograph and store cabinet skins and allowed them to have a go too, answering questions such as 'how old are they?' 'do you still kill birds?' (answer - no!) and 'where are they from?'.

We hope that this public facing museum work will continue in the space for the next few years.

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Day two of our Mysteries of the Deep half term event

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#museumlab all ready for the half term hordes @brighton_museums, with @katiealicehobbs @gracie_bee33 @kaptainbonobo (at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery)