I had no idea what to expect, but the College of Optometrists museum (#museyeum) is the greatest little museum I’ve been to in London for a long time, it’s fabulous.
https://www.college-optometrists.org/the-college/museum/museum-visiting.html
The museum collection was started in the early 20th Century but has grown massively and has moved several times – it is now listed as as one of the thirty ‘very best’ specialist subject collections in the world, and I had the pleasure of a “Full Building” tour given by the wonderfully knowledgeable and enthusiastic museum curator Neil Handley.
The standard tour omits many highlights so I strongly recommend the full one.
https://www.college-optometrists.org/the-college/museum/museum-history/curators/neil-handley.html
It’s in Craven Street, just around the corner from Charing Cross Station and a few doors down from the Benjamin Franklin House museum (ironically the Optometrists College claim to have more Ben Franklin related exhibits than the house itself).
I visited it this morning, and here is just a taste of what you can see there.
First is the Print Room, with prints dating from the 16th Century onwards.
Here is an itinerant selling glasses – holding a mouse who itself is also wearing glasses.
Here is Saint Lucia, a persecuted Christian who had her eyes put out. They miraculously grew back again but she kept her original ones out on a plate for everyone else to “see”.
This Meissen tailor and goat I will not describe other than to say you must go on a tour yourself to discover its bizarre history.
A pair of Ronnie Corbett’s glasses.
Not one but two pairs of glasses specially designed to be worn by chickens.
A first edition of Isaac Newton’s book, Opticks, one of the greatest books in the history of science.
Finally, and probably the biggest draw for the younger audiences, the actual glasses worn by Daniel Radcliff as Harry Potter in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”.
This is an exceptional gem of a museum, and I encourage everyone to see it!
