Behind the scenes at the M Shed

With personal stories, quirky objects and amazing exhibitions, M Shed is a favourite for those living in the city and for visitors from further afield.

However, there’s another side to Bristol’s harbourside museum. Despite the huge array on objects that are on display, the M Shed has to keep much more kept in storage, as there is simply not enough room to showcase everything at once.

Andy King, senior collections officer at the museum, is the person in charge of looking after the items in storage. A lot of the M Shed’s items that aren’t on display are stored in the warehouse next door, called the L Shed. Tours regularly take place for the public to get a behind-the-scenes look, and Andy King invited Bristol24/7 for an exclusive, access-all-areas version, seeing parts of the collection that the public don’t get to see.

Andy King is the museum’s senior collections officer

The bright, modern architecture of the M Shed makes it’s hard to imagine how the warehouses would’ve been in the 1950s. However, opening the door to the L Shed reveals a warehouse that has changed very little since the mid 20th century.

Looking down the warehouse, there seems to be endless artefacts. “We think only 1 per cent of the collection is on display. There’s 1.75 million objects in the collection,” says Andy, explaining how large the L Shed is with a photo taken after the warehouses were built in the 1950s. It easy to imagine the harbourside’s busy port bringing goods into the city and taking Bristol’s products, from chocolate to tobacco, around the world when looking at the black and white image.

The museums in the city have been collecting significant objects since 1823 and the extensive collection is important in telling Bristol’s story. One of the objects in the collection is a horse drawn carriage built in the 1800s. It was in Bristol Museum when the blitz started in World War Two and was severely bomb damaged. For Andy, objects that several stories are the most interesting.

One of his favourite pieces in the collection is a whale vertebra found in the Bristol Harbour in 1908. Like the horse drawn carriage, it’s a piece that tells multiple stories and encourages speculation. He says: “We have no idea how it got here, it’s great to get visitors to speculate about it.

“It creates conversation. I like to think a sailor brought it home from his travels. Maybe when he got back to Bristol, he thought the wife wouldn’t be too happy having a whale bone in the house. I can imagine him chucking it overboard into the water.”

All the objects have a link to the city and are vital for researching the past. Many universities access the museums’ collection, as well as other attractions in the city. The SS Great Britain are currently using photos of the docks to gain a greater understanding of the ship’s history.

Having worked with the city’s museums since 1981, Andy can tell the story behind nearly every object. There are many pieces linked to Bristol’s key industries of the past, such as buses, tobacco and chocolate.

Cadbury‘s Keynsham factory closed just before M Shed opened, and Andy points out the chocolate memorabilia, including an Easter egg machine, collected from the factory after in closed. There are also several tobacco machines which still work.

It’s unsurprising to pass a collection of bikes, giving the cycling-nature of the city. What’s more surprising, is seeing a YoBike alongside the penny farthings and  a Sinclair Zike bike of the 1980s. Andy says: “It’s important that museums keep collecting. It doesn’t stop. With the YoBike, we can map it’s journey and we know it’s full-service history.”

Having walked the length of the warehouse, Andy opens the door to a room rarely seen by the public. This is the paper collection, where some of the smaller, more delicate items are stored. As well as 15,000 photos of the port, taken between 1908 and 1980, there’s five cabinets of tobacco packets and 12,500 photos of ships.

Bristol24/7 gained exclusive access to the paper collection

With the news of the former Greenbank chocolate factory being developed into new homes, it’s bittersweet to see the chocolate packaging and advertising to come from the building.

Attention turns from the chocolate posters to the portrait of a man in the 1700s that the museum hopes to buy. As well as documenting Bristol’s chocolate and harbourside history, the M Shed also has pieces from the city’s less palatable past; the portrait is of a slave trader and Andy says that “we can’t forget what Bristol was built on. It’s about telling the social story of the city.”

Tobacco memorabilia, an Easter egg box and Jeremy Corbyn t-shirt sit side-by-side

The last part of the tour is for the collection’s largest objects. With the city’s close ties to the air industry, there’s a mock up a Concorde cockpit that was used to train pilots. There’s also a Bailey caravan, as the company is based in Bristol. Andy explains that “We got in in 1988. We hope to use it as a roving ambassador for the museum in the future.”

The true-to-size mock up of Concorde’s cockpit

There are several bus chassis and even a fire engine from the 1950s, which is regularly taken outside for visitors to see.

The tour draws to a close and Andy pushes a door which opens into the entrance of the museum again. The bright lights and airy atmosphere, full of excited children and adults alike, prove that the important work of people like Andy are vital in teaching people about Bristol’s past.

Read more: My Bristol favourites: Andy King