Portsmouth museums create virtual exhibits to explore during lockdown
HISTORY lovers in Portsmouth will have the chance to learn more about the city's past during lockdown from the comfort of their own homes.
New websites for five of the city's museums have been launched to display all their exhibits and to showcase specific items online.
A new 'stories' section for each of the sites has also been created to detail the history behind some specific artefacts, along with a 'staff recommends' section for team members to share their favourite items.
Portsmouth City Council's culture boss, Councillor Steve Pitt, encouraged people to make use of the resources during lockdown. He said: 'We're lucky to have such a diverse range of museums and exhibitions across the city and the new website portals bring the online offer right up to date and allow people to explore and understand more about the service and our collections than ever before.
'This is especially important during the current lockdown and I hope people will take the opportunity to investigate our items via the websites and plan which exhibition they'd like to visit first when we're able to reopen our much loved city museums.'
The museums with new sites are the Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery in Old Portsmouth, Charles Dickens’ Birthplace, Cumberland House Natural History Museum, Southsea Castle and Eastney Engine Houses.
And although the D-day Story, in Southsea, already had a website it will now include some of the new stories and exhibit features.
In addition to the new websites a new YouTube channel for the museums has been established, to provide more information about certain objects.
A new portal site has been created to provide easy access to all six museum websites and cab be found at portsmouthmuseums.co.uk.