I went to the Postal Museum with two of my kids in June this year - at the time my kids were two and six. Located in Clerkenwell, it tells you the history of Royal Mail and the Post Office, and - it's main attraction I'd say - is that you ride on "Mail Rail", the tiny train that carried post underground all around London. Mail Rail ran from 1927 until 2003, which I still class as 'fairly recent'!
Visting the Postal Museum, London
The first thing to note about visiting the Postal Museum is that you have to make sure you read everything they send you because it is split over two buildings, and so you really should read what they send you so that you know where you need to go. We had to book a time slot and arrive at the right time for our ride on the mail train, which is located in a building across the road (actually more of a lane than a road so it's not hard to cross) and maybe 100m away from the building where the rest of the museum is. As we approached, coming from the tube at Farringdon, which was about a 12 minute walk away, the building with the train, I think from memory, was on our right across the road from us.
When you first get into the building where the Mail Train is, you're in a big gift shop. You're directed to a little bay where you can leave your pushchair because you can't take your pushchair onto the train or even onto the platform area. I'm afraid I don't remember if there was a lift, so what disabled access would be like, but I remember it being very clear that you had to leave your pushchair in the shop because the first thing you do is you go down some steps.
It's in this building as well, just aside from the shop where the "Sorted!" play area is, which you pay extra to do. We didn't pay extra to do that, but we did stick our head in just to see what it looked like so I could report back and it did look nice. It's a role play area, with a pretend post office, and sorting equipment - it did look like somewhere where my six year old and two year old could very happily have spent half an hour or more. But at the time of booking, I didn't really want to pay any extra for it and we had a lot of ground to cover as we were on a busy long day in London.
Mail Rail at the Postal Museum
We had arrived slightly before our time slot, but they showed us straight through and we had to queue for the train, but not for very long at all. Each of the carriages are so small, you have to leave your belongings on some shelves and it's a bit of a leap of faith cos I'd already had to leave the pushchair at the top of the stairs completely out of sight just in the middle of London in some random place, and now you're having to leave your bag somewhere. But where you leave it is behind a barrier from where everyone is queuing, so the only people that can get to it are the people who are on your train and who get off your train before you. So you've just got to hope there is no one super dodgy on your train, and I guess everyone is booked on with contact details anyway (which could be fake I guess....). Anyway. they let my six year old and myself go in the same carriage with my two year old sat on my lap. I'd thought we might have had to go into separate rows, with my 6 year old sat in front of me but it was really good of them to let the three of us in together; it saved anyone feeling like they were slightly on their own.
The carriages are small! The first thing you think when you get there and you see the train trundle in with other people on it is how dinky it all is! I'm 5 ft 3, and yeah there were three of us in our carriage but two of them were very little. So, it's really quite a confined little thing. Whilst I thought it was really good, I maybe wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't like small spaces.
You then rattle around these little alley ways, and it's really interesting how the mail used to move around London and all the organization that went into it. I think the kids enjoyed it, I don't remember anyone finding it particularly scary. I think they would have found it scary though if they'd been not sat properly with me, cuddled in, even if they'd been in a seat in front. I don't think - sorry it was a while ago now - there's much that's in complete darkness, but a little bit.
So you're going down these little tunnels and then every so often you get into a wider area of the platform and the train stops and they do a projection onto the walls of the platform. And this projection shows how people would have worked along the sides and what would have happened, and how they would have sorted things out, along with different animations, explaining everything. I thought it was really brilliantly done. They could have done it just with models, or re-enactments, or they could have just had a TV screen somewhere, but I thought it was really, really clever and effective to do it with giant projections. They also showed the odd little narrative projected of someone posting a letter and then what happened with it, so it was very informative and very cleverly put together.
When we left the train, we found a section on the platform where you could sit and watch a video of what we'd seen on the ride if you weren't able to go on the train, so do contact them if you have accessibility needs which means the video option might suit you better.
Next, in the same building, there is an exhibit with various activities so that you can understand the physics of the Mail Train (as it is quite special in how it works) and how things move around and how they keep things moving. So there are things where you wind the handle and something moves along, or pulleys and pivots - just lots of little almost science experiments, but based all around the mail train and the kids loved all of that. There's a big operator board where you're told there's a blockage here or there's an issue there, so you have to press this button and flick that switch, and there's a vibrating, rattling carriage where you have to try to sort post into the right boxes whilst you're on this bumpy rough ride! The kids could have stayed there for a really long time, but I was aware we had a lot to do on our day, so we moved on. Overall, we were there less time than it was advertised it could take but I think if it was the only thing you were doing that day, you could absolutely make it last the 2 to 3 hours they suggest.
The Postal Museum: learning history
Next we headed out of that building and up the (slight) hill and across the small road to the next part of the Postal Museum, which tells you the history of the post office, how it started and - possibly my most favourite fun fact of the day - why it is called the Post Office. It was a while ago we went now, but I think it was to do with the stables where the horses would stay (because everything was carried by horse) and the stables were called the Posts. And so that's where the term the Post Office came from. So little bits like that, I found really, really interesting - along with how things worked across seas with ships and what was expected of the employees, and how the monarchy were involved, and how it all started so that people could spy on communications that were going around.
It was really interesting, but the two year old was getting nearly-nap-ready so I couldn't stop and read everything quite as much as I wanted to. I'd say the displays were interesting for kids as even during the historical bit, there were carriages and horses for them to look at. There were some attractions the 2 year old would have liked more, but they were a bit broken. There was something where you could be an operator on a switchboard or go in a phone box, but they were supposed to be more interactive based on the instructions and they weren't working, so that was a shame. There was a fair bit for him to touch though, so that helped.
Then there were other parts, just around the corner, that were very interactive, and my six year old was loving those, such as designing your own stamp (which I think you could then email to yourself, but I can't find that email now), but I had to move things along a little bit because of the tired 2 year old, so we didn't spend too long going around that part of the museum.
It's also in this part of the Postal Museum where the dress up section is, where you dress up as post postal workers during the ages. I mention that because it's highlighted a lot on their website, and called "Dressed to Deliver". The kids did enjoy it, but for us it wasn't a major part of the attraction, as it may come across on the website. We had to wait for the people infront of us to get in and out of each costume (there were a few items of each but it must have been that someone had the right hat, or we just didn't want to invade their space or something). And at the first set of costumes, the kids stood back for a photo and accidentally knocked over a really tall partition wall which I then had to catch before it squashed them or took down other parts of the display! It was one of those free standing things on feet you'd have at an exhibition, so it wasn't heavy, but it was very tall which made it hard to handle / catch! And despite one of our party being a tired 2 year old, this absolutely wasn't anyone's fault as they literally brushed up to it when I told them to step back! So I think after that slight drama I was maybe done with the costumes! I mention it here as I didn't mention it on the day so if anyone from the Postal Museum reads this, they might be able to move it or find a way to tether it to the ceiling!
Finally we stopped in the cafe for some lunch and after I'd ordered, I saw that actually they had some quite nice small light meals. But when I first got there and it was slightly busy, but mainly I was feeling the strain of an over tired two year old at the beginning of a very long day in London, I just grabbed the, you know, when it's like four things in a kid's bag for a fiver or something. And that was fine, but when I realised that there were slightly larger meals on the menu, I did think they looked very nice and would have been a better idea. Outside there were some small tables and chairs and, an old fashioned vehicle, the kids could go and sit in.
We only spent about an hour and a half at the Postal Museum in total. It says on the website it's 2 to 3 hours, and we could certainly have stayed there longer if it wasn't that I needed to get the little one into a pushchair and just push him along so that he could have a nap.
Overall, I'd say we all enjoyed the Postal Museum. It's not somewhere I'm desperately in a hurry to go back to because I feel like I've done it now, and it's a trek for us from North Somerset. But if you were more local, I could see you'd call back in for the cafe or for the kids to have a wander around. When you buy a ticket you get free entry again for a year, or can ride the Mail Rail for £6 within that year.
I think the whole attraction suits a lot of ages because I felt like I learned something and it very clearly and concisely told the story of how the post office started, and that was very interesting, but there were lots of hands on exhibits for the little kids to do as well. So overall, I'm glad we found it as it's not something that you read about every time you look at things to do in London. I learned about something that's relevant in our day to day lives, but also experienced the mail train, which is really quite a unique experience.
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