The British Lawnmower Museum is the best little museum you’ve not visited yet
The .uk internet is for everyone and every business. Regardless of how niche or specialist your interest might be, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find somewhere dedicated to celebrating it. Even if it is the humble lawnmower…
In most museums, the deal is that you walk around silent rooms at a sedate pace, musing on important historical artefacts. You come out and feel you’ve learned a little bit more about some of the main currents of human civilisation.
But where do you go if you want to find out something more esoteric? Where could you go if you wanted, for example, to explore the history of lawnmowers?
Well, such a museum does exist, and unsurprisingly, the internet is your first port of call in tracking them down. The British Lawnmower Museum is the only museum of its kind in the world, and also holds the honour of being the first result that comes up when you google ‘lawnmower museum’. If, of course, you ever do.
These specialist museums might not be your typical fare, but they’re far from hidden away — for years, they’ve been using their web presence to attract the attention of far-flung visitors
These specialist museums might not be your typical fare, but they’re far from hidden away — for years, they’ve been using their web presence to attract the attention of far-flung visitors. The British Lawnmower Museum had such an early web presence that its website was part of the — still just about working — ‘Unusual Museums of the Internet’ RingSurf WebRing.
(For people who didn’t use the internet in the 1990s, WebRings were once a popular way for sites to advertise themselves by sharing links to other sites of similar interest. If you go on the Lawnmower museum website and click the ‘next unusual museum’ button, you’ll find a list of the museums in the original web ring, many of which still exist.)
The museum itself, in Southport, has been open since 1980. It’s the brainchild of lawnmower enthusiast Brian Radam, who sees the lawnmower as just as valid an object to chart social history as any other — and why not? Crammed into a small space above a shop, the museum is host to a hundred lawnmowers of various vintages. For a £3 entrance fee, you can see such rare gems as the lawnmower belonging to Alfred Pierrepiont, Britain’s last official executioner; and a lawnmower that belonged to Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Manager Ian Britstone says they have three hundred more not on display, plus a massive archive that includes Edwin Beard Budding’s 1830 patent for the first push lawnmower.
He and Brian are especially proud of their collection of celebrity lawnmowers and lawnmower parts, with donations from gardening aficionados including Antonio Carluccio, Brian May and Alan Titchmarsh
“We get hundreds of visitors a week,” he says, “and a lot of people bring us their parents’ and grandparents’ mowers to add to the collection.” He and Brian are especially proud of their collection of celebrity lawnmowers and lawnmower parts, with donations from gardening aficionados including Antonio Carluccio, Brian May and Alan Titchmarsh, who donated an old hand-weeding device. Without the web, they might not be so well-stocked. “We run on a shoestring budget, so the website’s vital to getting the word out,” says Ian.
This story is one of 30 celebrating the launch of .uk domain names in 1985. To read the others visit our 30 Years of .uk hub. To start your own .uk story check out www.agreatplacetobe.uk.
