London Canal Museum

“My mother, Dinah, the Foundress of the London Canal Museum, in #KingsCross, who invited HRH The Princess Royal, to open it, 33 years ago and be the Patron, passed away recently. I was keen to give her a good send off, in a unique venue, in a cost effective way, so wanted to book the Canal Museum, on a Monday, when they were closed, so rang the long standing trustee, Malcolm Tucker. He called an impromptu meeting and together they pulled out all the stops, to give my late ma, Dinah Hutchinson, the most brilliant send off. I couldn’t have asked foe more. They bent over backwards, to offer the venue and their services, free of charge and willingly, including Martin, “the Manager”, or Chair, personally moving tables and chairs, with me, the night before, when he normally commands an army of volunteers, Malcolm delivering a fantastic story of the founding of the Canal Museum, after my mother saw the resilience of the bargees, marooned, on the ice, by City Road Basin, Islington, during the Big Freeze, around #Christmas 1962, until March 1963, dancing on the ice, as their cargo transportation business, went onto the roads and wanted to preserve their culture. The building was also a Victorian ice house, started by Swiss immigrant Carlo Gatti, who escaped school beatings, aged 13, to come in London England and import ice from Norway, where it was cleaner, than the Regents Canal. At the end of the Buffet lunch, with the finest Aldi champagne, Malcolm stayed on to sweep up. Martin was operating the dishwasher, for the champagne flutes. I am so grateful. You also found my Lidl bag with my purse and front door keys, a couple of weeks later and put them aside for me! You are all stars. Many thanks. I will keep coming back!”

“We had a wonderful experience here, one of the best museum visits we’ve ever done. We booked the canal tour on a Sunday at 11. We arrived at 10 to explore the exhibition (it is part of the boat ride ticket). Would recommend to plan about 45-60 min for the museum visit. So interesting, the exhibition explains about the canals and also about the ice trade (they used to import it from Norway!). The bout tour took 50 min, our guide gave us a lot of info and made us tea/coffee. Extremely nice and knowledgable staff, all of them. Would really recommend to book a boat tour with them. The ticket was approx 17 pounds. I book the tour about 2 weeks in advance (in august).”

“Nice museum. Obviously not as extensive as the National Waterways museums in Gloucester and Ellesmere Port (do visit). Lots of reading panels and artifacts. Combined with a pub crawl of the local area it's a good day out. Allow around two hours to have a good read of all the panels. Toilets are upstairs and it's disabled friendly as they have a wheelchair type lift for upper floor. Was originally an ice warehouse, part of which is in the middle of the museum.”

“The museum is very interesting, showing life not so long ago along the canals. The staff were lovely and well informed. The building was an ice warehouse back in the 19th century. Many captivating exhibitions focused on canal history have emerged over time.”