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 |
The Northampton Museum and Art Gallery is a really cool public museum located in Northampton, England. The local council, West Northamptonshire Council, owns and runs it. This museum is famous for having one of the largest collections of shoes anywhere in the world! It has more than 15,000 pairs, and experts say this collection is super important, both locally and internationally.
The town's museum first opened in 1865. It later moved to its current spot in 1884, sharing the building with the town's library. When the library moved out in 1910, the museum took over the whole 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 for a big renovation project between 2017 and 2021. This project cost about £6.7 million! The new and improved museum finally reopened in July 2021. It was a bit later than planned because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amazing Collections
The museum started collecting footwear way back in the 1870s. Now, it has the biggest shoe collection in the world! In 1997, it was officially recognized as being super important globally. The ground floor of the museum is filled with displays of some of its 12,000 pairs of shoes. These shoes show styles from Ancient Egypt all the way up to today!
There are also two special areas just for shoes:
- Life & Sole looks at the history of how shoes were made. It even has a recreated old shoe factory!
- Followers of Fashion explores how shoe styles have changed through the centuries.
Some of the paintings in the museum also show its focus on footwear. You can see 17th to 19th-century artworks by artists like Jan Miel and Hendrik van Oort. These paintings often feature cobblers, shoemakers, and people shining shoes. A very important person in building this collection was June Swann. She was the Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection for 38 years, starting in 1950.
Other Cool Displays
The second and third floors of the museum have other interesting exhibits. You can learn about the history of Northampton itself. There are also displays of beautiful ceramics from Asia and Italian art from the 15th to the 18th century.
See also
