The Herschel Museum of Astronomy at 19 New King Street,
Bath, England, is a museum that was inaugurated in 1981. It is located in a town house that was formerly the home of
William Herschel
Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline ...
and his sister
Caroline.
Location
![HerschelTelescope](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/HerschelTelescope.jpg)
The museum is situated in the former home of the Herschels at 19 New King Street (south side) in
Bath,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The building is a particularly well-preserved small town house of the period.
The modest town-house covers five floors, and includes two reception rooms on the ground and first floor.
The town house is part of a terrace that was built around 1764-1770. The building is constructed from
Bath stone ashlar, with some
coursed rubble at the rear, and slate
Mansard roofs with
pantiling on the internal slopes. The entrance is on the left-hand side of the building, which has three storeys, as well as an attic and basement, each of which have two
sash windows.
The building represents a middle-grade Georgian town house, typical of the homes of artisans and tradesmen of the city of Bath (but contrasting with Bath's grand visitor houses)
The Herschels moved into 19 New King Street in 1777,
at which point the builders would have still been present, and the road would have been
unmetalled
A road surface (British English), or pavement (American English), is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, hoggin, cobble ...
.
William discovered
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus ( Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of ...
whilst residing in the house in March 1781 using a 7 foot telescope designed and built in the attached workshop.
William left Bath in 1782,
but Caroline, along with their brother Alexander, remained at the house until 1784.
The building has been designated by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
as a grade II*
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
The building was restored in 1981, and again in 2000,
using period detailed wallpaper based on fragments discovered in other Bath houses, and carpets based on 18th century designs.
Museum
![William Herschel Museum - rear of building](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/William_Herschel_Museum_-_rear_of_building.jpg)
In 1977 the
William Herschel Society was set up to gather support for the rescue of the building.
It was purchased in 1981 with the aid of Doctors Leslie and Elizabeth Hilliard,
saving it from demolition.
The main-belt asteroid
6395 Hilliard
6395 Hilliard, provisional designation , is a stony Nysian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 4.5 kilometers in diameter.
It was discovered on 21 October 1990, by Japanese astronomers Yoshio Kushida and Osamu Mu ...
was later named in their honor.
The house was subsequently transferred as a donation to the Herschel House Trust.
The museum was opened on 13 March 1981, exactly 200 years after Herschel discovered Uranus.
The museum is governed by the Herschel House Trust,
a registered charity.
The
Bath Preservation Trust
The Bath Preservation Trust is a charity that is based in Bath, Somerset, England, which exists to safeguard for the public benefit the historic character and amenities of the city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its environs. The trust is i ...
became the sole trustee of the Herschel House Trust in July 2015.
[Bath Preservation Trust]
newsletter no. 82 (winter 2015) The
patron
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...
s of the museum have been
Patrick Moore (until 2012) and
Brian May
Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury and ...
(from December 2013).
The museum is curated by
Debbie James.
The museum offers
audio tour
An audio tour or audio guide provides a recorded spoken commentary, normally through a handheld device, to a visitor attraction such as a museum. They are also available for self-guided tours of outdoor locations, or as a part of an organised to ...
s. A virtual tour of the museum is available for mobility-impaired visitors, and a book containing
tactile images is available for blind or partially sighted visitors. A disabled parking space is located outside of the building. Replica objects in the museum, including a replica of Herschel's polishing machine, are designed to be handled.
The museum uses
QR code
A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...
s to provide translations of the display exhibit labels in 10 different languages,
and illustrated trails are available from the shop.
The museum has a school programme and workshop.
Layout and contents
![William Herschel Museum - dining room](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/William_Herschel_Museum_-_dining_room.jpg)
The basement contains a kitchen, parlour and workshop.
At ground floor, the building has an entrance hall with a staircase, a small closet room that is used as a dining room, and a large south-facing room at the back of the house. Similar south-facing rooms are present at each level of the building. The dining room contains Herschel's dining table.
On the first floor, the Music Room occupies the closet room, and the south-facing room is the Drawing Room.
The upper floors provided bedrooms and servant quarters;
they have subsequently been converted into flats.
Kitchen
![William Herschel Museum - kitchen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/William_Herschel_Museum_-_kitchen.jpg)
The kitchen incorporates a Victorian cast iron range and a stone flag floor.
It contains a replica Georgian house based on the museum's building, which is fully furnished inside.
Workshop
![William Herschel Museum - replica mirror polisher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/William_Herschel_Museum_-_replica_mirror_polisher.jpg)
William built a single-storey workshop at the rear of the basement, extending into the garden; he used the workshop to conduct experiments and to construct his lenses, and it still contains Herschel's
treadle lathe.
The workshop, adjacent to the kitchen, was where William and Alexander made their telescopes. It contains a replica
furnace, and a replica of William's machine for polishing lenses, the original of which is in the
Science Museum, London;
the replica polishing machine has been designed to be handled,
and a touchscreen computer demonstrates the tools and machinery in the workshop.
Caroline Lucretia Gallery
The Caroline Lucretia Gallery, named after
Caroline Herschel
Caroline Lucretia Herschel (; 16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848) was a German born British astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigolle ...
, was added to the museum in 2011. The gallery was designed by
Hetreed Ross Architects,
and is of a modern design,
with floor-to-ceiling glazing, overhanging eaves and a flat
stainless steel stressed skin roof,
with the solid walls constructed of Bath Stone Ashlar to match the rest of the building.
Inside, two walls are the former outer walls of the kitchen and workshop, and the other two consist of display panels. The limestone slab floor is insulated and heated. It cost £80,000, which was raised via a 2-year funding campaign, after planning permission was approved in 2008.
It received a prize for building and design from the Bath and North East Somerset Building Control Department.
The gallery expanded the available space at the museum,
and is used for temporary exhibitions.
In August–December 2013 the exhibition was on the art and science of light in the 18th Century, entitled "Making light of it",
and in April–December 2014 it was on Caroline Herschel, entitled "Being Caroline - A Second Self".
In August–December 2015 the temporary exhibit was "Waterloo and The March of Science".
Auditorium
The "Star Vault Astronomy auditorium",
opened in 2003,
shows a short film about the Herschels, their life living at 19 New King Street, and modern space exploration, narrated by
Patrick Moore.
Garden
![William Herschel Museum - Herschel statue in garden](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/William_Herschel_Museum_-_Herschel_statue_in_garden.jpg)
The garden has been restored in the style of a formal Georgian town garden, with
cypress tree
Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word ''cypress'' is derived from Old French ''cipres'', which was imported from Latin ''cypressus'', the la ...
s and a
quince arbour, as well as native medicinal and culinary plants that would have been grown in 1794.
A diameter powder-coated steel
seed head by
Ruth Moilliet represents Uranus's position in the 2005 ''Spaced Out'' model of the solar system, which spanned the UK with the Sun at
Jodrell Bank Observatory
Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astro ...
.
A sculpture of William and Caroline, named ''Star Gazers'' by
Vivien Moudell, sits against the garden wall close to the entrance to the workshop. Made of Bath stone and slate, it was unveiled in 1988 by Patrick Moore and
Rod Davies. It shows William dressed in a wig, jacket and ruffled shirt, behind Caroline, in a bonnet and holding a quill pen, looking at a piece of paper showing a drawing of the solar system with Uranus at the centre. An octagonal slate panel was set above their heads, engraved with planetary orbits.
The garden also contains a sundial at the location where William may have placed his telescope.
Music Room
The Music Room was used by William to teach pupils how to play music. It contains a single action pedal
harp, commissioned by Mademoiselle
Henriette Peyrot-Magenest in 1795,
made by
George Cousineau and son
Jacques-Georges Cousineau,
and purchased by the museum in 2012. The harp is carved and decorated in
Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
style with scrolling leaves, flowers and garlands, and a soundboard decorated with classical
arabesque
The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foli ...
s.
The music room also contains a modern sculpture of an orrery, created in 2009 and based on the 18th Century Brass Drum orrery held at the museum.
Collections
![William Herschel Museum - Caroline Herschel's dress](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/William_Herschel_Museum_-_Caroline_Herschel%27s_dress.jpg)
The museum holds a small dress worn by Caroline when she was around 50. It is made from white muslin with a blue spot and dates from the last years of the 18th century.
The museum also has a
Thomas Butterfield sundial, dating from c.1690, made of silver in the shape of a bird, with names of European cities and their latitudes on the back; a Copernican
Armillary sphere by
George Delamarche, made of brass, wood and paper, and with Herschel's name and Uranus on one outer ring;
a Cometarium showing the motion of a comet on its path around the sun, on loan from the
Science Museum
A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in ...
;
and paintings of
Elizabeth Baldwin by
Robert Muller (pre-1798)
and
John Herschel (1892).
A scale model of the
40-foot telescope
William Herschel's 40-foot telescope, also known as the Great Forty-Foot telescope, was a reflecting telescope constructed between 1785 and 1789 at Observatory House in Slough, England. It used a diameter primary mirror with a focal length ...
, as well as an early photo of it that is framed in wood from the telescope, is on display at the museum.
Additionally, several rare books, including Caroline's visitor book, can be viewed on a computer.
In 2015 it was announced that the museum will house
Patrick Moore's collection of objects related to William Herschel.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herschel Museum Of Astronomy
Museums established in 1981
Museums in Bath, Somerset
Biographical museums in Somerset
Grade II* listed buildings in Bath, Somerset
Science museums in England
Astronomy museums
1981 establishments in England
Science and technology in Somerset
Musical instrument museums