London Fire Brigade Pop –up Museum

Delightful temporary museum for the London Fire Brigade in Lambeth.

This pop-up museum is using the space under another temporary museum, the Migration Museum. I assumed it was a pop up for the summer but the friendly guides explained that it had been there for about 10 months. There was a display of engines and all the equipment which is needed for an incident. There was also a virtual reality experience of fighting a fire but I chickened out of that!

There was good room telling the history of the fire brigade in London with a mix of well written commentary boards and a few choice items. It was a nice touch that the room was painted in fire brigade red. There were also good boards on the plans to build a new museum on the site of a fire in which a number of fireman died in the late 9th century and the site of the London brigades first HQ. The plan is to build on the river and use the museum to regenerate the area. It looks really excepting.

When I was there there was a good display on a fire boat which went to Dunkirk. It told the story well with good photographs and I found it quite moving.

I hope they manage to build a permanent space as the plans look fantastic. I’d definitely be back to see it.