Helen Stephenson's London Canal Museum Pictures, November 25th, 2006

The building which houses the London Canal Museum was Gatti's Ice House at King's Cross, and the museum displays are as much about ice as they are about canals, but both are actually linked together, as the ice was transported on the canals using barges drawn by horses.

Part of the ice well is still in existence beneath the building, although it's no longer as deep as it was in the days when it was used to store ice.

The other museum exhibit directly relating to ice was the ice cream seller's bicycle.

The upstairs part of the museum originally housed the stables. The horses climbed up and down on the horse ramp, which is a 1-in-3 ramp. It's not open to the public as it's considered too steep for public use.

These are two-dimensional horses placed against the ramp's wall.

There is one stable stall recreated, including a life-sized model of a horse to occupy it. I tried using a wider lens to avoid the blue rope when I took the picture on the right, but succeeded only in creating a picture whose caption could be "Does my bum look big in this?"

Displays of harness and the forge are also housed in the upstairs section.

It was very pleasing to look out the window of the museum onto a canal basin and to see a barge out there which is still working. This barge was delivering materials to the building site where it is moored.

There were a number of residential barges moored in the canal basin. There are also geese in residence!

Downstairs there were exhibits showing the lifestyle of those who operated barges on the canals.

There were glass cases displaying model boats.

There were a number of objects decorated with traditional canal art. I can't add much to the way the museum explained this, so I'm going to quote what was in the display case:

"Canal art with its bright colours and distinctive roses and castles was an integral part of canal life. Everything was painted and decorated in this style; water cans, dippers and even the mop handle."

"Boatyards employed artists to decorate the boats and some boatmen were also highly skilled in the craft. The skill was passed down through the generations in families and by training apprentices."

These two objects were stored on the floor upstairs.

These objects were on display behind glass in the downstairs section of the museum.

This picture doesn't exactly belong here, but it doesn't belong anywhere else either, so I've included it. It's part of the facade of St Pancras Station, which I snapped when we were making our way back from the Canal Museum to Kings Cross Station. (The two stations are right next door to one another, and Euston Station is only about a block away.)