Toddler Fun at the Royal Naval Museum
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Written by Joanne Robinson
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 Mum-of-three Joanne Robinson offers a guide to taking young children
around the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyards.One of
the problems with looking for new places to take your happy babies and
toddlers, is just not knowing what you’ll find when you get there. This is, I find, especially true of the museum world. In the past I’ve
been fired with enthusiasm after hearing descriptions of museums
(usually from friends with no kids)
as places where there’s ‘loads to do for families’ only to arrive and find every activity is aimed at 7 to 12 year olds and the poor three year old I’ve wired up into a fever pitch of excitement is too small to actually see anything; never mind do it. My other nightmare scenario is walking into the silent museum, peppered with a couple of whispering elderly residents and watching my toddler have a melt down because there is no colouring, no step up stools and generally nothing but the bottom of display cases at her eye level. Fortunately this doesn’t happen often and the pace of change in museums and the emphasis on family friendly visiting ensure that most museums are really becoming aware of the practicalities of visiting with a young family. We’re very lucky in Hampshire that local and national museums here are interested in attracting families and will generally go out of their way to make sure that you have a great time.
One of the best museums I’ve been to in the last year is the Royal Naval Museum in the Historic Dockyards at Portsmouth. The Royal Naval Museum tells the story of Britain’s naval history in a really colourful, hands-on and imaginative way. The setting is also great; just walking past the majestic old ship, HMS Warrior and stopping to stare with the children is a bit of a thrill.
You buy tickets for the Royal Naval Museum at the ticket office by the entrance to the Dockyard, it’s £4.50 for adults and under 5s go free. Then take a leisurely stroll through the dockyards until Nelson’s magnificent flagship, HMS Victory, is on your right. The Royal Naval Museum is actually located in three separate buildings on your left. On both my visits we’ve started at the furthest part of the museum in the Victory Gallery. The centre of the gallery contains ‘The Quarterdeck’, a special section of hands-on exhibits and computer interactives showing how the ship was sailed and fought. My girls were particularly taken with ‘Sailing close to the wind’, a chance to experiment with wind and sail. They also loved the glass lift up to the second floor which is packed with vividly coloured warship figureheads. The viewing gallery on this floor offers a fantastic view. There is a special exhibition at the moment, ‘Chasing Freedom: The Royal Navy and the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade’ to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, which prompted lots of questions from my curious 5 year old and was an interesting opportunity to talk about a difficult subject.
The next building in the museum contains the Nelson Gallery and the ‘Sailing Navy’ gallery. There is a children’s activity trolley in the reception area which has hats and dressing up, dot-to-dots, colouring and lots more activities. The staff are happy for children to take activities from the trolley into other parts of the museum and to keep coming back for more. Both galleries also have linked activities for children. I spent a happy 10 minutes watching the film about Nelson whilst my two played with the jigsaw puzzles and games at the activity station in the centre. The Sailing Navy Gallery is really interesting, showing life in the navy with lots more hands on activities. What I really love about this museum is how integrated it all is; the text boards are written in such a clear, economic style that you can read what you’re interested in whilst the kids are happily occupied.
The third part of the museum, the Twentieth Century Gallery was interesting but there is very little for the children to do and mine started playing up here, as is their wont when not kept occupied and interested. There are plans to re-do this part of the museum in the future. With the exception of this however, I really think the Royal Naval Museum is one of the most family friendly museums in the South East and would highly recommend a visit. Every part of this museum is accessible to those with pushchairs, there are good baby changing facilities and the museum will provide a space for breastfeeding. Quite simply this museum is a perfect place to visit with little kids. The staff are incredibly helpful, there’s lots to do, lots of space and your practical needs will be met. At no point in our visit did I ever feel the need to ‘Shush’ or cry out ‘don’t touch!’ In fact they could happily touch anything not put away behind glass and the feel of the museum was so friendly that we were happy to chatter away the whole time. We took a picnic and sat outside looking at Victory, the Royal Marines Band were playing and it was magical; I can’t promise the band but I think you’ll all enjoy a day out at the museum!
Getting there:
There are car parks around the historic dockyards which are clearly signposted but I find the best way to visit the Historic Dockyards is by train. You can see HMS Warrior as the train pulls up at Portsmouth Harbour Station and you are just a few minutes walk from the entrance to the dockyards. The train ride is also part of the fun of the trip for toddlers and saves the confusion of driving around the Portsmouth one-way system for those (like me) unfamiliar with the area. The Royal Naval Museum’s website, www.royalnavalmuseum.org, has all the information you need about visiting
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