Barometer World facts for kids
Barometer World was a special place that used to be the only museum in the world all about barometers! Barometers are tools that measure air pressure, which helps predict the weather. It was located in a village called Merton, in England.
Barometer World didn't just have a museum; it also made, sold, and fixed different kinds of barometers. It was started in 1979 by a person named Philip Collins. The museum part of Barometer World closed its doors in March 2022. Now, Barometer World is an online-only business.
History of Barometer World
In 1987, Barometer World moved from its first home to a new place called Quicksilver Barn. A special display of barometers was opened there in 1990. This display was later updated with a new one.
The place now has a shop, a workshop, and the exhibition area. If you wanted to visit, you needed to contact them first.
The person who looked after the museum was Philip Collins. He started learning how to fix barometers when he was 19 years old. In 1979, he started his own company that focused on barometers. Mr. Collins has written many books about barometers and how to fix them. He was also a member of the Royal Meteorological Society.
Exploring the Exhibition
The museum's main exhibition showed many different kinds of barometers. It also displayed other items used for predicting the weather. You could see very old weather tools and even a "snorting barometer." There was also a special barometer used in mines.
One interesting item was a full-size copy of Merryweather's Tempest Prognosticator. This was a very unusual weather predictor shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was a working copy, but the museum did not use it often.
Between 1995 and 2005, Barometer World hosted the Banfield Family Collection. This was a display of 350 barometers. Most of them belonged to Edwin Banfield. They were loaned to Barometer World for ten years. After that, the collection was split up and sold.
For National Science Week in 2000, Barometer World rebuilt Magdeburg Hemispheres. This was a demonstration of air pressure. They used 16 shire horses to try and pull apart two large metal hemispheres. Barometer World also sometimes showed how powerful the air around us is. They used a model of Brunel's 'atmospheric railway' to show this.
The Barometer Workshop
The museum had a workshop where barometers could be made or fixed. However, since October 2009, new rules in Europe stopped the use of mercury in new barometers. This meant the workshop made fewer new mercury barometers. Customers needed to contact them before bringing items for repair.
In 2001, a copy of a 17th-century glass kiln was built. This was an experiment to see how glass was made long ago. The kiln was built using old designs. It could reach very high temperatures, around 1300 degrees Celsius (2400°F), just by burning wood. Glass from a nearby factory was often used for experiments when the kiln was fired.
