Herschel Museum of Astronomy facts for kids
The front of the Herschel Museum of Astronomy in 2005
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| Established | 13 March 1981 |
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| Location | 19 New King Street, Bath, BA1 2 BL |
| Owner | Herschel House Trust (Bath Preservation Trust) |
| Nearest car park | Disabled parking slot outside building |
The Herschel Museum of Astronomy is a cool place to visit in Bath, England. It opened in 1981. This museum is inside a historic house that used to be the home of two famous astronomers: William Herschel and his sister Caroline. They were amazing scientists who discovered many things about space!
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Discovering the Universe from Home
The museum is located at 19 New King Street in Bath. This house is a great example of a small town house from the 1700s. It has five floors, including two main rooms on the ground and first floors. The house is built from special local stone called Bath stone. It has a unique roof style with slates and tiles.
William and Caroline Herschel moved into this house in 1777. Imagine living in a house where builders were still working! It was here, in March 1781, that William made his most famous discovery: the planet Uranus. He used a special 7-foot telescope that he designed and built himself in a workshop right behind the house.
William left Bath in 1782, but Caroline and their brother Alexander stayed in the house until 1784. This building is so important that it's protected as a Grade II* listed building by English Heritage. The house was carefully fixed up in 1981 and again in 2000. They even used old wallpaper designs found in other Bath houses to make it look just like it did in the Herschels' time.
A Museum for Star Gazers
In 1977, a group called the William Herschel Society started to save this important house. It was bought in 1981 with help from Doctors Leslie and Elizabeth Hilliard, stopping it from being torn down. Later, an asteroid was even named 6395 Hilliard in their honor!
The house became a museum on March 13, 1981. This was exactly 200 years after William Herschel discovered Uranus! The museum is run by a charity called the Herschel House Trust. Since 2015, the Bath Preservation Trust has helped manage it. Famous guitarist and astronomer Brian May is a patron of the museum.
The museum wants everyone to enjoy learning about space. They offer audio tours to guide you through the house. If you can't easily move around, there's a virtual tour. For visitors who are blind or have low vision, there's a book with tactile images you can touch. You can even handle some replica objects, like a copy of Herschel's polishing machine! The museum also uses QR codes to give translations of information in many languages. They have special programs and workshops for schools too.
Exploring the Herschel Home
The museum is set up to show you what life was like for the Herschels.
Downstairs Rooms
The basement has a kitchen, a small sitting room (parlour), and William's workshop. On the ground floor, you'll find the entrance hall and a dining room. This dining room still has Herschel's dining table!
The Kitchen
The kitchen has an old-fashioned cast iron stove and a stone floor. It even has a tiny replica of the museum's building, fully furnished inside!
William's Workshop
William built a workshop at the back of the basement, extending into the garden. This is where he did his experiments and built his amazing telescopes. You can still see his old treadle lathe here. The workshop has a replica furnace and a copy of William's machine for polishing lenses. The original polishing machine is in the Science Museum, London. The replica is designed so you can touch it and see how it worked. A touchscreen computer also shows you the tools and machines used.
Caroline Lucretia Gallery
This modern gallery, named after Caroline Herschel, was added in 2011. It has big glass windows and walls made of Bath Stone. It cost £80,000 to build, raised through a special campaign. The gallery gives the museum more space for temporary exhibitions. Past exhibits have explored light, Caroline Herschel's life, and science during the time of the Battle of Waterloo.
Star Vault Auditorium
The "Star Vault Astronomy auditorium" opened in 2003. It shows a short film about the Herschels, their life in the house, and modern space exploration. The film is narrated by the late Patrick Moore, a famous astronomer.
The Garden
The garden has been restored to look like a formal Georgian town garden. It has cypress trees and a quince arbour. You can also see plants that would have been grown in the 1700s for medicine and cooking.
There's a cool steel sculpture in the garden that represents Uranus's place in a model of the Solar System that once stretched across the UK! You can also find a sculpture of William and Caroline called Star Gazers. It shows William and Caroline looking at a drawing of the solar system. An octagonal slate panel above them shows planetary orbits. There's even a sundial where William might have placed his telescope.
The Music Room
William Herschel was also a talented musician and taught music in this room. It has a beautiful old pedal harp from 1795, decorated in a fancy style called Rococo. The room also features a modern sculpture of an orrery, which is a mechanical model of the solar system.
Amazing Collections
The museum has some really special items. You can see a small dress worn by Caroline Herschel when she was about 50 years old. It's made of white muslin with blue spots.
Other treasures include:
- A silver sundial from around 1690 by Thomas Butterfield.
- A Copernican Armillary sphere (a model of the universe) by George Delamarche, which even includes Herschel's name and Uranus.
- A Cometarium, on loan from the Science Museum, London, which shows how comets move around the Sun.
- Paintings of important people like Elizabeth Baldwin and John Herschel.
You can also see a scale model of William's huge 40-foot telescope and an early photo of it. Plus, you can view rare books, including Caroline's visitor book, on a computer. In 2015, the museum announced it would house Patrick Moore's collection of items related to William Herschel.
