Expect dinosaurs and much, much more: when Manchester Museum fully re-opens after £15m five-year revamp
Apart from the vast majority of five to 10-year-olds - and there’s no offence meant here whatsoever - you’d struggle to find someone as excited about dinosaurs as David Gelsthorpe, Manchester Museum’s curator of Earth Sciences.
David is particularly proud of this dinosaur because of the condition it arrived in. When the Manchester Museum got hold of it, in the late 90s, it had rather been through the mill - holes had been packed with car filler which had to be dug out of the crevices and fissures, while other bits had been stuck together with - the horror - superglue.
“Three quarters of the way up, you get this really distinct line,” he says. “And that’s that point 66 million years ago when the asteroid hit Mexico, which was the primary cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs. Mind blowing.” So in reality, it’s been almost five years since the museum has been open properly. And then the pandemic came along right in the middle, so a huge amount of the refurbishment took place under social distancing rules, which brought with it its own unique challenges.
“Since then, with issues around the cost of living crisis and family poverty, these things have become really important. We need to be a space where everyone belongs. We didn’t have changing places in the toilets, and now you can’t build public spaces without them, but that didn’t exist when we started the project. We need to think about our visitors, and what we need to do to care for them.”
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