Plans announced for school in Bristol Museum

This month’s irreverent column from Julian Owen exclusively reveals surprising plans for a new primary school.

Plans to create a new school costing £3.5m for 340 pupils in the upper floors of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery have gone on show to the public. Children who attend Vaulted Nave primary school are currently housed in a boring old building elsewhere. 

In a statement, the school’s executive principal, Nell Blunderbuss, said: “We are delighted to reveal these exciting plans, which our architects, Getov Myland, have developed following extensive gazing at our collective navel. We believe the proposals will create a wonderful and inspiring educational environment for our children, while at the same time preserving, and even enhancing, our extraordinary sense of entitlement.”

Vaulted Nave refused to comment on rumours that Phase II of the move will entail commandeering the popular ‘play and learn’ ground floor space for a preschool.

The plans have already drawn fierce criticism. “At the moment researchers and the public of Bristol can see and learn from a vast array of the museum’s wonderful collections, and have a jolly nice day out to boot,” said Love Bristol Museum’s Mark Yu.

“The fear is that this valuable public service will be seriously degraded, with the education of a very lucky few being put above the education of the 99%.” 

Blunderbuss played down the concerns. “Technically, yes, the floors are open to the public, but let’s be honest, no one really goes up there. When did you last hear someone say ‘I had the coolest time looking at the dead insect rocks in Bristol Museum’? Never, that’s when. It’s Egyptian mummies, gift shop, and out.” 

After being shown CCTV footage of visitors climbing the stairs, Blunderbuss insisted: “The only things they care about up there are the gypsy caravan and Alfred the gorilla. We’ve submitted exciting plans to dress Alfred in flying coat and goggles and sit him inside that old plane hanging in the entrance – everyone will get a kick out of that.

“And it’s cruel keeping the gypsy caravan indoors. We’ll return it to its natural environment by selling it to a local glamp site, Fleece You ’Til Dawn, where it will be rented out as bijou accommodation. For just £300 per person per night, it will be more genuinely accessible to the public than ever before.”

Of the second floor artworks, Blunderbuss said: “Painting is just so last century. Maybe even the one before. I’ll be honest, history isn’t really my thing, but I know outdated when I see it.”

It is proposed that many of the exhibits, including the globally important collection of Chinese glass, be moved from the museum to B Bond warehouse in Smeaton Road, where they could be accessed in 48 to 72 hours by any of the very few people with an earthly idea that they are there at all. The dinosaurs, meanwhile, have been earmarked for a ‘Jurassic Sky Garden’.

A source close to the project told Bristol24/7 that plans for the garden’s layout have neared completion, based on a theme of “dumping the bones on the warehouse roof and covering them in tarpaulin”. 

The promise of keeping exhibits safe elsewhere has done little to assuage a number of concerned groups, including the Campaign for Learning through Museums, Save our Shared Heritage, the Society for Repealing What is Manifestly Stupid, and Tony Robinson.

Despite such high profile opposition, and a petition numbering 327,000 signatories, the proposal is expected to be imminently approved by Mayor George Ferguson.

Conspiracy theorists have been swift to note that Blunderbuss and Ferguson are each longstanding members of the Desperate Dan Pie-Eater’s Club. The mayor played down the link on Twitter, adding: “I’m a strong supporter of the museum service, but not of a campaign that puts museum artefacts before Bristol kids’ education”, like it was some kind of bleedin’ binary choice.