Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

5liz c 5:00 PM Oct 5, 2021

Great visit with so much to see
Spent nearly 3 hours going round the Museum, there is just so much to see, its all free you just have to make a £5 donation to the trust to keep the place going, well worth it. They have a cafe with snacks and drinks, and its upstairs so you get a great view of the museum from up there. Slight criticsm that its a bit dark and a bit crammed with to much stuff to see properly but a great building

4Kit 5:00 PM Feb 19, 2022

A very different museum experience
Popped in here for an hour or so having also visited the Natural History Museum (both are free to enter, and you access the Pitt Rivers via a door in the back of the NHM - not especially clear!) I have truly never seen a museum like this in my life. It is one large room on three levels, where the top two are mezzanines. The place is absolutely jam packed with a very eclectic mix of exhibits from all over the world. While the sourcing of many of them has an uncomfortable past, there are a few new information boards providing better context, and some of the most egregious exhibits (the 'shrunken heads', for example) have been removed. The room is not especially well lit and it can be hard to make out what certain things actually are, as the labelling is unclear. Additionally, it is very cramped! This is both in terms of the actual exhibits - hundreds of artefacts crammed into every display - as well as the walkways in between displays being narrow and difficult to navigate. All that being said, there are so many beautiful, intriguing and intricate artefacts to see, and it is a very different experience to many other museums. I would absolutely recommend a visit to anyone with a little time to spare in Oxford (it should take less than an hour to get a feel for the place), although it is perhaps not best designed for excitable children who would prefer to get back to the big dinosaurs next door!