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View Synopsis DOVER MUSEUM

In the centre of the town of Dover, at the foothills of the castle, is a museum, which tells the rich and important history of this historic port town and surrounding area.

KIM NORTON, Education Officer: 'The first thing you see of the museum is the lovely Victorian front that was the part of the museum that was part of the original Victorian museum; it was the oldest museum in Kent when it was first opened. But when you get past that you are confronted with a modern museum that was actually opened in 1981. So although things in it are obviously very old, they are displayed in a very modern way, with modern interpretation and with interactives and it’s fun.

'Dover is a very important place, everybody in the world has pretty much heard of Dover and here it’s telling the story of Dover, telling why Dover is where it is. Right from it’s early Bronze Age days, through the Second World War, to the current day.'

Dover Museum tells the story of many important archeological discoveries. But perhaps the most important has to be the discovery of a large wooden boat, which was found just 50 metres from the museum.

JON IVERSON, Curator: 'This is the Dover Bronze age boat, it dates from 1550 BC, 3,500 years ago and it’s just a remarkable survival. It was found here at the shortest crossing point to continental Europe and it gives us direct evidence of the fact that communities in what is now Britain were trading with continental Europe in the Bronze Age.

'The boat as found in a very deep hole, it had to be cut up to get it out of the hole. So it was cut along the strong points of the boat so the withys and the fastenings didn’t fall apart during excavation and so that we could study them afterwards.

'What people wanted to know about the boat is – did it go to France? The answer is probably yes, but we don’t know and what we’ve tried to do in the gallery is to provide the evidence so people can draw their own conclusions.

'So we’ve put in things like a jigsaw for children so they can put their own boat together. We’ve put in things about how it was excavated and what was found with the boat; things about the environment at the time and we’ve put in a hypothetical reconstruction of a Bronze Age building or part of a building so people can see for themselves how people lived, the people who made this boat, see how they lived in the Bronze Age.'

The museum has generated a little bit of magic in its temporary exhibition space of the gallery of treasured memories of childhood.

MARK FROST, Assistant Curator: 'We tried to get something that everybody would recognize; for instance we’ve got a 1950s room which is post-Second World War which has got the kind of toys that would have been around in the 1950s. We’ve got a 1970s room, so we’ve got Cindy and "On the Buses" board game and all that sort of thing.

'One of the biggest things, which are really popular with children, is the Binatone tennis game from 1974, which they are just fascinated by because it’s so retro. It's nothing like the modern games at all. It’s just two sticks and a ball going beep beep. But because it’s so old, they’ve just fallen in love with it and it’s one of the most popular things in the exhibition. It doesn’t matter what your age is, it doesn’t matter if you are 80 or if you are 16, if you grew up with it, it’s your favorite toy and basically, hopefully this is a gallery full of people’s favourite toys.'

The museum is keen to make sure it’s accessible to all ages and works with local teenagers to make sure they get it right.

PUPILS FROM DOVER GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR GIRLS: 'When we first came down, we saw the exhibition and it had changed a lot since we’d come down when we were younger but we could see how there could be improvements; given more interactive things for the younger children to do, more for our age to do.

(Looking at exhibition case) 'See this exhibition is still a bit boring, like the black background, it’s not really coming out. There’s too much writing again as well... and the ages, I don’t really know where each model is from. We could have it more interactive as well... yeah, cos you could actually have some of these out of the case. But then I’m not sure with the little kids, whether they’d... you could do something.

'We really wanted people of our age to come down and look at the museum to see what’s down here and look around and stuff, cos not many people know it’s here.

'It's just making the museum a more youth friendly place, that’s what were here for, that’s what we want to do and we want to get more people to be interested in the local history not just think of it as something that’s boring that they are going to look through, through a glass case.'

The museum is anything but boring. Visitors are given the opportunity to discover history for themselves and to become archaeologists for a day.

VISITOR: 'I’m just looking at a water cricket and you can basically see all the detail, the hairs on its legs'

VISITOR: 'Well, we have evidence of people during the Bronze Age, basically, so they show us flint or animal bone.'

KIM NORTON: 'This is our interactive database. In our collection stored in our library, we have thousands and thousands of pictures, postcards, information documents about Dover. They’re quite difficult to access, so they are now on a computer screen here, so the public can actually come in, they can look at the screen, they can search for anything. So it’s particularly good for people who are interested in Dover or who are doing research on their families or we quite often get people who are researching the houses they have bought or houses their relatives lived in.'

The museum is full of fascinating displays covering a wide variety of subjects and eras. So whatever your age or interest, come along and discover how Dover played a role in history for yourself.

You’ll find Dover Museum in the Market Square, Dover. They’re usually open from 10(am) til 5.30(pm) but please call the museum first or check their website.