Portsmouth Dockyard - Part 2

Welcome back to my Portsmouth Dockyard series. On Friday the 14th of December 2018, I went to the Victory Gallery (I was going to go to the M33, but it doesn’t open until 11:30 AM), so instead of hanging around waiting for it to open, I decided to go to Victory Gallery.

Inside the gallery, there was lots of space for people with mobility aids, such as wheelchairs and walking frames. The gallery is interactive. There was a telly which played a short film. To play the film, you have to press a big, green button – the button was fairly easy to get to, but if someone with less use of their hands wanted to watch it, I think they might struggle because it took me two or three attempts to press it. I think it may be better if it had a sensor to play the video when a person is in front of the screen. This way everyone could play it. As for the screen itself, I thought that it was a bit high for some people to see easily. This could be improved by lowering the screen.

There is a play room for children, this room was bright and colourful. Most children would like it in there. There was a small gate into the play room, I got in with my manual wheelchair, but my chair is quite small, so I don’t think a bigger wheelchair would fit in there. I understand why they have made it small, but what about if the parents use wheelchairs? Parents and children like to play together, but a full-size adult wheelchair won’t be able to fit in there, therefore they would just have to sit outside the area while the children play.

There is a disabled toilet in the Victory Gallery, but it was out of order, so I couldn’t see the size of it, and how it was laid out. I don’t know how long this toilet will be unavailable for, but there was a sign on the door saying that the nearest disabled toilet was either in the Mary Rose Museum or Sailing Navy Gallery. I had a look in the disabled toilet in the Sailing Navy Gallery, and it was decent, but it was a bit small and it was just a standard disabled toilet.

The gallery has three floors, with a small lift. It’s great the gallery has a lift because lifts eliminate restrictions. This lift is quite small too, I only have a small manual wheelchair at the moment, but someone with a larder wheelchair might find it more difficult to manoeuvre in and out of that lift. The third floor had lots of figure heads. There was also a small wooden puzzle of a head. In the centre of the third floor, they have Nelson's funeral barge (boat). I like how the boat was displayed. The boat was narrower than I thought it was.

In the Victory Gallery, there was an interactive area, where you can walk through and see history coming alive but unfortunately when I went in, it was broken. After speaking to the assistant in the gallery, I was told that the Dockyard might not be able to fix it. This would be a great shame because I’m the kind of person who likes interactive things, I learn better by doing things. Although, this is a bit ironic because I don’t have much use of my hands, but hey ho.

I hope you are enjoying this blog series. That’s it for now, but I’ll be back