About the Jack the Ripper Museum
Sandwiched between a burger joint and a corner shop in the heart of Whitechapel, London, UK is a Victorian Town House, and, fittingly, the home to The Jack The Ripper Museum.
The museum invites you to step back in time to the London of 1888, the greatest city in the world, where the greatest unsolved crimes of all time took place.
What did we think of The Jack the Ripper Museum?
Entering through the gift shop, which is any budding Ripperologists dream, you can find case studies, prints of newspapers from the period, a plethora of books and other accoutrements. As we walked in the staff were welcoming and gave us a rundown of what to expect from the museum.
As we start our journey we can see that details of the murders interspersed with maps, hand-drawn illustrations and newspaper clippings cover the walls of the hallways, an effective and engaging way to get you involved in the story as well as looking great, although I am not sure some of the other patrons realised that it wasn’t just fancy wallpaper and may have missed this.
Each room of the house is a recreation of something connected with the story of Jack The Ripper, a crime scene, a police station, a lounge and so on which all tell the facts behind that particular moment in the case.
You have several scenes to explore full of items and information such as the lounge scene which included a very bad fake liver in a box alongside a recreation of the From Hell letter. The room itself was beautiful and fun to look at just as a period piece aside from the actual purpose of the museum.
The real jewel of the crown is the police station. This is packed with interesting case information, genuine newspaper clippings from the time and the actual whistle used by PC Watkins to call for help upon discovering the body of Catherine Eddowes which is incredible, plus his notebook, handcuffs and truncheon.
The whole thing really does transport you to another time and place, but what we initially took to be smell pods to help immerse you in the rather smelly streets of Victorian London turned out to be a foul customer toilet outside the mortuary, and with no windows to open the smell had permeated the whole building, rather than a well thought out aroma!
Conclusion
The Jack The Ripper museum took us about an hour and a half to go around and really take everything in. We love to absorb everything there is on offer, but if reading is not for you then it could be a very short experience, while we were there we saw several groups whip around and leave within half an hour.
There are quite a few stairs to climb (there is a lift for wheelchair users only) so if you have decreased mobility please bare this in mind, and although it adds to the atmosphere one other thing to note is that the light being low in a few of the rooms could mean that some could struggle to read the information provided.
Overall this was worth the entry fee and had some very interesting exhibits inside, if you are interested in anything ‘Jack The Ripper’ pop this on your list to visit if you are in the area.
