It’s the sounds as much as the historical sights that greet visitors as they cross the wooden bridge into the airy Shipyard Gallery.
Guests will already have seen a stunning satellite picture of Barrow clearly showing how the town has grown as they arrive through a refreshed main entrance with a timeline setting out how radical changes have taken place.
Inside a dramatic heavy engineering soundtrack sets the tone for an exploration of a vast collection of models, maps, pictures and artefacts.
Many have never been seen before and the emphasis is on showing how ordinary people could carry out extraordinary feats of engineering.
“We’ve made the most of the height of the building and have gone through our photographic archive to pick out some really special images and display them on a massive scale,” Charlotte Hawley, collections and exhibition manager, explained as she showed off the display.
Housed in a listed dry dock, the museum already attracts 45,000 visitors a year.
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Westmorland and Furness Council, BAE Systems Maritime, Furness Maritime Trust and the Sir John Fisher Foundation, The Shipyard Town Project has helped to create new jobs, pay for the construction of a research pod, the installation of solar panels as well as refurbishment of gallery.
The new display is bound to appeal to many more visitors, old and new, who will also be able to sample what life is like aboard a submarine. A replica wardroom, based on Barrow-built HMS Courageous, is a new addition to the museum.
Jim Perks, the former head of the Royal Navy’s submarine service and now a senior member of BAE Systems’ Barrow management, sets out in a video how members of the Silent Service live beneath the waves.
Elsewhere examples of the kind of craftsmanship that made Barrow famous are on show with models of passenger liners and freighters alongside military craft. The Rangatira, a steamer built for the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, is just one of a fleet of models looking as good as they day they were produced.
Everywhere are images showing people; watching launches with pride etched on their faces or concentrating on an engineering task. The same expressions still doubtless familiar to the thousands who still work in marine engineering just a stone’s throw away.
“We wanted to get away from the image that it’s all about men in flat caps,” Charlotte says, highlighting a broad range of images from the archive and more recent times. “There’s so much expertise and skill here.”
The museum has a vast collection – well over 26,000 items. A project to ensure as many can be seen and enjoyed as possible has also been completed. A programme of digitisation means that an app, called Barrow Dock Museum Explorer, offers wide access to the collection via QR codes within the museum. A virtual tour of Barrow town hall is also available.
While the collection is already impressive, the museum is keen to gather even more items which could be in homes in the town. A glass display cabinet has been left empty with an open invitation to visitors to bring artefacts which may form part of their own shipyard story.
