Northampton Museum and Art Gallery facts for kids
The main entrance to Northampton Museum in May 2023
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| Established | 1884 |
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| Location | Guildhall Road, Northampton, England |
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery is a public museum in Northampton, England. The museum is owned and run by the local West Northamptonshire Council. It holds one of the largest collections of shoes in the world, with more than 15,000 pairs! This incredible collection has been recognized as very important for the local area, the country, and even internationally.
The town's museum first opened in 1865. It moved to its current location in 1884, where it shared space with the town's library. After the library moved out in 1910, the museum took over the entire building. The museum was made bigger in 1935 and again in 1988. In 2012, it was updated to make it easier for everyone to visit.
The museum closed between 2017 and 2021 for a huge expansion project that cost about £6.7 million. The new museum finally reopened in July 2021. This was a bit later than planned because of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
Contents
Discover the Collections
The Amazing Shoe Collection
The museum started collecting footwear back in the 1870s. Now, it has the largest collection of shoes in the world! In 1997, experts officially recognized this collection as being super important internationally. The ground floor of the museum is filled with displays of some of the museum's 12,000 pairs of shoes. These shoes show how footwear has changed from the time of the Ancient Egyptians right up to today.
There are also two special areas just for shoes:
- Life & Sole explores the history of shoemaking. It even has a re-creation of an old shoe factory!
- Followers of Fashion focuses on how shoe styles have changed throughout the centuries.
Some of the paintings on display also show the museum's interest in footwear. For example, there are 17th to 19th-century Dutch and Flemish artworks that show cobblers, shoemakers, and shoeshiners. A curator named June Swann played a very important role in building this shoe collection. She worked there for 38 years, starting in 1950!
Northampton's History and Art
The second and third floors of the museum have exhibits about Northampton's own history. You can also see displays of beautiful Oriental ceramics and Italian art from the 15th to the 18th century.
See Also
