Stonehenge forum 180 room
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Most people like to take away a tangible reminder of their visit to a museum or famous place, whether it's just a postcard or a guidebook, and 'official' gift shops tend to be fairly priced and the goods on sale of good quality. Replicas for example are now of such a high quality that they're hardly distinguishable from the originals (I don't mean full size replicas of Stonehenge :-) but the sort of replicas on sale at places like the British Museum gift shop (the Lewis Chess Set springs to mind). Interestingly, it was the Conservation Dept at the BM that pioneered the very high quality of replicas you can now buy at the gift shop there.

There's quite a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes at the big museum gift shops - the BM has its own publications department and not only publishes exhibition catalogues and books written by the curatorial staff but also prepares information packs for school children, gallery lectures, tours abroad etc.

At the end of the day the visitor doesn't have to buy anything - but it's nice to have to option.

... it's nice to have to option.

Indeed it is. At Dublin Zoo for instance you <i>have</i> to fight your way through the shop to leave! I've been to several other places where it's the same and it really pisses me off to be honest. I think any major visitor centre built now would not give you that choice simply due to the need to recoup some of the excessive costs involved in building things these days.

At Sutton Hoo you can shop till you drop, view copies of goodies still at the BM, see a few genuine baubles, watch a film and never have to trek through the cold and the wet to see the real mounds at all - and most visitors never do. There is a viewing platform for the brave souls who do stagger that far, but the comments are inevitably ones of disappointment. " Where is the ship/treasure/gold/body/sword/helmet?" "They are just hills!" "Is that all there is?" That is why I don't want an OTT visitor centre at Stonehenge that will diminish the real thing.