Museum of London packs up for ₤250mil move

LONDON: King Charles I’s execution vest and 20,000 human remains are among the objects that need to be packed up as the Museum of London makes a daunting £250mil (Rm1.3bil) move.

The museum tells the story of one of the world’s great cities through more than six million artefacts – the largest urban history collection in the world.

But it has long been hampered by its location, tucked away among the glass towers of London’s everexpanding financial centre, The City.

When the building was unveiled in 1976, The Times newspaper reported that “Her Majesty, the Queen is opening the Museum of London today, if she can find the entrance”.

“We’ve been struggling with that,” admitted the museum’s director of content, Finbarr Whooley.

The museum is preparing to move to a giant disused market building in the capital’s “cultural mile”, with the formidable threeyear task of relocating the items set to begin on Dec 5.

“When you think about moving your own house, you think about packing up and moving and the stress of that. You just take this and put it on steroids,” Whooley said.

“Some of those objects will be tiny, some of them will be monumental, literally.

“But they will all need to be individually packed, individually numbered, recorded and then moved very carefully. We are approaching it with military precision.”