The British Museum: A World of Exhibits and Wheelchair Access

During a recent trip to the nation’s capital, Helen Dolphin MBE spent the day exploring the British Museum.

Here she reports back on the wide range of exhibits and, of course, disabled access.

The British Museum

The British Museum building is very imposing with its huge towering pillars and impressive frontage. This time I was able to book my parking right outside the front. To book you need to telephone 020 7323 8299 at least 24 hours in advance. However, the entrance is not that obvious as posts must be lowered into the ground to enable to you pass. Don’t do what I did which was miss the entrance and then spend the next 30 minutes sitting in a London traffic jam. The museum building has a large flight of steps leading up to the entrance but there is good access by an external lift. Inside is incredibly vast and I had no problem pushing myself about. This museum was considerably quieter than the Natural History and would probably suit older rather than younger children. Although maps are given out on entry I found it was easy to just follow one exhibit to another but seeing everything in one day is pretty much impossible.

Although this is the British museum it is certainly not just about Britain and I started my visit looking at Egyptian sculpture. Here you could see a stone bust of the Pharaoh Ramesses II and the world-famous Rosetta Stone. This room then took me through to Middle East Assyrian Sculpture and Balawat Gates where I stood in the entrance to the royal palace of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) at Nimrud. From here I was led into an enormous room where the walls were covered in a stone sculpture which once decorated the outside of The Parthenon which was a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. I then made my way back through and past the impressive Nereid Monument  which takes its name from the Nereids, sea-nymphs whose statues were placed between the columns of this monumental tomb. As well as lots of impressive statues and stonework there was also a lot of pottery and jewellery to admire.

Once I’d finished looking around the ground floor I took a lift upstairs. The first room I entered was about Medieval Europe where there were lots of medieval treasures. This then led me into Roman Britain where there was an array of mosaics, glassware and metal work. From here I made my way to the exhibition on Egyptian life and death where coffins, mummies, funerary masks, portraits and other items designed to be buried with the deceased were on display. I was struck by how small the Egyptians were, and there was a mummy of an eight year old child that looked the size of a two year old by today’s standards. The final room I looked at was about the Roman Empire. Having recently watched Spartacus I thought there might be something about him but I couldn’t find anything. However, there were plenty of stone and metal sculptures of emperors and gods.

After my busy morning looking around the museum I was glad to stop for lunch. There are a number of cafes and a restaurant in the middle of the museum called the Great Court restaurant.

The British Museum was a fascinating place and somewhere you could come back to time and time again. There was so much to see I feel I only just scratched the surface. Access was not at problem at all and it was easy to get up close to exhibits and manoeuvre around with ease.

Further Access information

Concessions for paying exhibitions are available for disabled visitors and a companion ticket is provided free of charge.

Wheelchairs are available at both entrances to borrow.

An audio descriptive guide is available free of charge on a touchpad device.

The British Sign Language (BSL) guide is available free of charge.