Alternative ways to view our historic house museums

Posted on by Fay Curtis.

By Lacey Trotman, Digital Apprentice

Our three historic house museums: Blaise Castle, Red Lodge and the Georgian House will soon be closing for the winter but fear not, we have a way you can still enjoy them.

Thanks to the very cool people at Google (and their many cameras) you can now access the houses from, well, anywhere!

The Google Expeditions app allows you to virtually tour our sites in an immersive experience full of great facts. With one tour per house, you can access all areas with 360° images of each room.

Screenshot of the Blaise Castle Expedition

Start your tour by searching for the one you want and select yourself to be leader.
As you look around the room you can zoom in on features and even get extra information pop up from the bottom of your screen. This information has been provided by the curators who know the places best – so it’s likely you’ll learn a whole host of new information.
The bottom of your screen is also where you can choose to navigate to the next room, and so on, around the house.

All you need in order to play along is to have downloaded the Google Expeditions app, own a smart phone/ tablet and – if you have them, put on your Google cardboard goggles (but these aren’t completely necessary).

Of course, tours of our houses aren’t the only ones available on there – you can travel from outer space to the bottom of the ocean. The app’s original intention was for teachers to use in the classroom with small groups, so the world is at your fingertips.

Logo of Google Expeditions

Amazingly the app is free, just head to the Play Store if you’re on Android or alternatively the App Store for those of you with IPhones. The app’s symbol is as pictured – an orange flag.

When downloaded search for ‘Living as a Georgian’, ‘Blaise Castle House Museum’ and ‘Elizabethan life in Bristol’ to find our tours. Enjoy!

For those of you not so tech savvy, one of the things we have recently put in place at both The Georgian House Museum and Red Lodge House Museum sites, are large format photo books.

This is in response to a recent in-house report that looked at changes we could make to improve the visitor experience at the houses.

If you’ve made the trip to a house but cannot quite manage all the stairs (and it is a long way up) then you won’t miss a thing with our new addition.

The photo books have been produced by volunteer Eve Andreski, working under the guidance of our graphic designer and curators.

Eve carefully photographed all the rooms and with a keen eye for detail, has made it her mission to particularly highlight even some of the smallest things in the rooms. So if you can’t access them all, you’ll be able to get a very good feel for them from her work.

All you have to do is request one from our friendly, historic house staff when the houses re open next year.

Georgian House opening times and Red Lodge opening times..

Look out for the great events that will  be happening at these sites next year by keeping an eye on the What’s On page.

Featured image and bottom image: © Eve Andreski

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