I loved reading Roald Dahl’s books as a child – my favourite was Matilda, followed closely by The BFG. Jessica and Sophie are still a little young for them but my twin sister’s two daughters both love them and were very excited when I suggested that we visit the Roald Dahl museum in Great Missenden during their recent stay with us.
Whilst planning our day out, I had also discovered that there was a treasure trail in Great Missenden and as the weather was perfect for exploring, we decided to include this in our day out. We downloaded this from the Treasure Trails website for £7.99 but there are also free leaflets for self-guided walks available from the museum.
Walking from the car park to the museum, we passed “Matilda’s library” (the village library which was the inspiration for the one mentioned in ‘Matilda’) and “Danny’s garage” (the petrol pumps which inspired the filling station in ‘Danny, the Champion of the World’). Outside the entrance to the museum was one of the gates from the entrance to Willy Wonka’s factory itself (a replica of the one used in the Tim Burton film).
The first two rooms – the “Boy” gallery and “Solo” gallery were all about Roald Dahl’s life – with photos, film clips and other items on display. There were interesting facts about his books and how the stories evolved – for example, there were originally 15 naughty children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because he had enjoyed writing about them so much! The girls had been given an Easter egg trail to follow and the two older ones were looking out for the clues on the Easter eggs dotted about the room whereas Jessica was having fun trying on a straw hat she had found and Sophie was just happy to wander about.
The height chart in the “Solo” gallery was interesting – I had never realised quite how tall Roald Dahl was (6ft 6in if you were wondering). We all enjoyed seeing how we measured up height-wise to the various characters in the books – my twin was the same height as Miss Honey, I was as tall as Mrs Silver and Jessica was about the same height as Farmer Bunce.
Roald Dahl’s writing hut had been reconstructed in the middle of the “Solo” gallery with the interior set up just as he had left it for the final time before he died. I found the items on the writing table particularly interesting – they included a ball of silver foil weighing 311g made from Dairy Milk wrappers, the femur ball joint from his hip replacement (the surgeon said it was the biggest he’d ever seen) and a jar of shavings from his spine after he had back surgery to ease the pain from his wartime injuries.
In the Story Centre, the next part of the museum, we were able to try Roald Dahl’s writing chair out for ourselves. The big armchair with its green baize-covered writing board, propped up with a roll of corrugated cardboard was incredibly comfortable and has tempted me to do something similar when we finally convert our junk room into a study!
The Story Centre was our favourite part of the museum – there were so many things for the children to do – from using magnetic words to try to create stories or new words, to building characters using cut out pictures of different facial features. There was a box of dressing up items which Jessica made a beeline for and several story sacks filled with items related to various books.
At the back of the Story Centre was George’s Crafty Kitchen – a big creative area with paper, crayons, glue, tissue paper, poms poms and pipecleaners. All four girls had a wonderful time creating pictures – even Sophie could enjoy sitting down and scribbling away with the crayons while Jessica loved gluing and sticking.
With the various masterpieces tucked away inside the buggy, and the four girls enjoying their mini chocolate bunnies (their reward for solving the clues on the Easter eggs), it was time to head off on our treasure trail. We’ve done these a few times now and find them a wonderful way of exploring an area.
This treasure trail linked in beautifully to our trip to the museum as it took us to the Church of St Peter and St Paul, where Roald Dahl is buried and the solutions to two of the clues were found around his grave – one on the nearby circular bench with the names of his children carved into it and the other on his gravestone itself.
Whilst the trail is marked as being suitable for buggies, we did have to leave it next to the church in order to find the clue in the old graveyard – something to be aware of if you are considering doing this trail. The village itself is very pretty and we had perfect weather for exploring – beautiful sunshine and a lovely warm day.
Entrance to the museum costs £6.60 for adults and £4.40 for children (5-18) with under 5s admitted for free. We paid £21 for a family ticket (two adults and up to three children). Visitors to the museum receive a wristband to enable them to come and go during the day so we could have returned to the museum if we’d wished after doing our treasure trail.
All in all, a fantabulous day out and one that I’d thoroughly recommend to anyone who is a fan of Roald Dahl.
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