Warrington Museum & Art Gallery

Warrington Museum & Art Gallery is a free museum in Warrington, a small city between Liverpool and Manchester. Despite living in the Liverpool area for over a decade, I haven’t been to this museum before. It’s so interesting that I plan to visit it again, when they have special exhibitions or events. I have to say that I wanted to book tickets for an event and it was sold out, which is understandable considering how well thought out the museum is. I imagine the special events are just as good.

I picked only a few items to showcase, what were some of the highlights from our visit.

In this room and in the room above were a lot of interesting things, but they didn’t photograph as good. For example there was an exhibit with cotton, starting with the drawing of a plant, and showing the different types of cotton, such as standard cotton and Egyptian cotton. There were types of cotton from around the world, how the fibres looked like, how it was made into looms, for each stage there was a small sample, and, in the end, a few cotton fabrics. Fascinating to see how different these were.
There were different types of seeds, such as herbs used for cooking, and woods. A very simple, but really good way to show how varied nature is.

There were beautiful art pieces in the galleries as well.

There is a cafe, where visitors can get a cheap coffee or tea and rest for a bit.

I just loved this exhibit. It had a “New Display Coming Soon” sign and underneath it was a message about Ukraine:

“This case is empty until we change over the display, but imagine what it would be like if all the display cases in the Museum and Library were empty like this one?
As one of the oldest local museums in Northwest England, Warrington Museum & Art Gallery are dismayed by the recent destruction at the Ivankiv Museum of Local History and at other cultural heritage sites in Ukraine.
According to checks carried out by UNESCO experts, 152 cultural sites have been partially or totally destroyed as a result of the fighting, including 30 historical buildings, 18 cultural centres, 15 monuments, 12 museums, 7 libraries, and 70 religious buildings.”

I was blown away by this message, so simple and so powerful.

The museum is quite big and there are a lot of exhibits to look at.

My favourite painting in the museum was this one. I made the man larger so it’s visible. On the display it is easier to see it, but in real life the big painting looks as if it is a macro of an rock with a small wave, when it is in fact a full beach.

This is the room above the first room, the one where the cotton exhibit is.

The building is beautiful as well.

There are a lot more exhibits, local history, Egyptian artefacts. One of them is of a mummified child and that display had a lovely mention that this was a real child, one that was loved because the mummifying process was expensive. They mentioned that this is not just an object, but that once it was a living person.

I highly recommend this museum. It’s big, so make sure you allow for plenty of time and get a coffee mid-way through.