The Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, part of the Victoria and Albert Museum, holds an incredible collection of children’s toys and clothes in some cases dating back over four hundred years. Take a look at huggable teddy bears and soft toys, and the largest collection of dolls in the country. Explore the tiny worlds of dolls houses and model shops while a resident at Holiday Apartments London and find out how people used to live and work, and marvel at the exquisite skill of the people who created the tiny objects. There are vast collections of mechanical toys and optical collections such as zoetropes and magic lanterns.
If you love playing board games, the summer exhibition about board games is not to be missed while you are in London staying in Serviced Apartments London as it contains examples of some of the world’s best known and best loved games – and many that you have never seen before.
Having discovered the toys, try entering the world of one of the most famous children’s books – Alice in Wonderland. A visit to the Vaults beside Waterloo Station will enable you to fall down a rabbit hole into an intriguing wonderland where white roses are painted red, an infamous game of croquet is played and the Mad Hatter holds a massive un-birthday party. What makes this specially unusual is that you don’t simply watch what is going on – you have to take part! This is immersive theatre. You have to make choices. Do you enter the door marked ‘eat me’ or choose to ‘drink me’. You might join an underground movement against the fearsome Queen of Hearts, or let the Cheshire Cat take you hither and thither in a flurry of different situations.
No two shows are ever the same. Routes around the Vaults vary, and characters take on more than one role. Lewis Carroll loved puzzles and this show is a puzzle. With luck, visitors find their way out eventually before collapsing with a mad cocktail in the Wonderland Bar and then returning to normality at Waterloo.
Lewis Carroll was a frequent visitor to London as he enjoyed watching shows in London’s West End. He was an avid theatre goer, making regular trips from Oxford just to see the latest show. He also photographed places and people in London. An accomplished photographer, he photographed many of the famous scientists, actors and society people in Victorian London.
Nowadays, he is immortalized in a memorial situated within Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey. Yet many would say that his real memorial is the famous story he gave to the world – Alice in Wonderland.
So, explore the world of imagination and childhood this summer by booking a stay at Presidential Apartments Kensington.
