Podcasts from the past

An audio description of the physical appeareance of a comb made from deer antler in the “London before London” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the antler comb podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James kelly, Keith David, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

Description: An audio description of the physical appeareance of a replica alder wood club in the “London before London” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the alder wood club podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Keith David, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

An audio description of the physical appeareance of a fingertip-decorated pottery bowl in the “London before London” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the fingertip-decorated pottery bowl podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

An audio description of the physical appeareance of a pair of bronze side-looped spearheads in the “London before London” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the bronze spearheads podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

An audio description of the physical appeareance of a full-sized replica of an Anglo-Saxon Home in the “Medieval” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the Anglo-Saxon home podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

An audio description of the physical appeareance of a 100 year old modle of St Paul’s Cathedral in the “Medieval” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the model of St Paul’s Cathedral podcast.
Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

An audio description of the physical appeareance of a grave slab in the “Medieval” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the grave slab that covered the heart of Joan de St Edmunds podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

An audio description of the physical appearance of a bronze Sabbath lamp in the “medieval” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the Sabbath lamp podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by all our visitors.

An audio description of the physical appeareance of the arms of the Hanseatic League carved in sandstone in the “medieval” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the arms of the Hanseatic League podcast.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

An audio description of the physical appearance of a 300,000 year old flint hand axe in the “London before London” gallery and some information about its historical context.

Download the podcast: Flint hand axe description.

Close your eyes and open your ears to journey through the Museum of London’s London before London and Medieval galleries. These audio description podcasts have been created to enhance the experience of specific objects for our visually impaired visitors, but they can be used by everyone.

This podcast was produced by Charles Clarke, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Keith David, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson.

This project is part of the Museum’s Community & Audience Development Inclusion programme, and is managed by Inclusion Officer Lucie Fitton.

Here at the Museum of London we wanted to do two things through this projects. One, make a step towards providing more resources for our visually impaired visitors (existing and potential). Two, by working with a group of real Londoners (by that we mean normal people living in this city, and not museum staff or specialists) to create them, we would be offering an interpretation of the collections that would be relevant and interesting to more people. Yes, these podcasts aim to describe museum objects to people who may not be able to see them clearly, but by opening your ears everyone can understand London’s story in a new way.

It was a huge task for anyone, let alone a group of people who hadn’t met, hadn’t visited the Museum before, hadn’t created audio description and hadn’t used recording and editing technology. The 10 podcasts were created in eight weeks, with just one day of workshop time each week.

Luckily we had some fantastic help from the experts. A couple of our curators showed the group around the galleries and provided invaluable advice about the objects. We then had training with Vocaleyes who showed us the basics of describing for visually impaired people. We also got the chance to meet Kirin, who is visually impaired and helped dispel myths around what it is like. Once the scripts were written we then worked with podcast producers from SoundDelivery to record and edit the final podcast. It was lots of hard work, but great fun.

The seven participants of this project come from a wide variety of backgrounds and had many skills and talents to add to this project. We hope they walk away with many more. Thanks to Charles Clark, Ivan Bello, James Kelly, Keith Allen, Liam McAtamney, Simon Allen and Warren Thompson. Also a big thank you to Tony and Kirin from Vocaleyes, and Jude, Mark and Lee from SoundDelivery.

You can find Podcasts from the Past on iTunes with this link (or search for “podcasts from the past” or for artist “museum of london”), or point your browser at the RSS feed.

You might also be interested in some background links about my role as Inclusion Officer and Community projects at the Museum of London.