Torquay's Crime Museum — Attraction in England

While the owner is clearly passionate about their subject they’re not a great curator. Obviously you don’t expect perfection from these small museums but there were a lot of frustrating things eg some stuff clearly copied and pasted from the internet, information that was far too small to read or hidden behind bars so you couldn’t read it, lots of typos in info, several exhibits were not labelled so it wasn’t clear what they were. I think parts of it were also quite out of date eg info on prison stats in U.K. was from 2017.

There were several TV screens with info playing, personally i dislike these but don’t have a problem with them being there, but the content on one of them (about Ronnie Biggs) was broken, kept going juddery like the DVD was scratched! The info was not brilliantly organised (eg info about one topic was over multiple areas and some repetition) but in a small museum that’s to be expected. Certain areas not lit well so you couldn’t read it. The smell was also not very nice (underground so maybe to be expected) and the toilets were smelly and didn’t seem to have been cleaned for a while.

Positive side: appreciated that it wasn’t purely about the most morbid stuff possible, there was stuff about generic prisons / prisoners as well as notorious criminals. Covered different crimes not just focussing on serial killers as it may have done. Clearly the owner has a personal relationship with prisoner Charlie Bronson (I’d never heard of him) and that section was good (if very bizarre!!). The prison cell was also interesting and not something you would expect to see, and I liked the bit about drug smuggling into prisons.

If i had paid £3 for the museum I wouldn’t mind but £6.95 students & OAPs / £8.95 adults is too steep for what it is. It’s a shame that the person who owns the museum doesn’t have someone who can curate the items as if they could better organise the info and displays and give some sort of cohesion it would be much better. The owner clearly does care about their subject and has put a lot of work into collecting these items, which is why i gave it 3 rather...

I am a huge admirer of anyone curating true crime memorabilia and I can see how a lot of work has gone into thinking of things to fill this museum but that is honestly part of the problem. The curator has filled space instead of truly thinking about quality or organisation.

Some great finds which are regretfully overshadowed by the least impressive gap fillers with many sections a mishmash of items meaning ths journey is hard to follow.

The big walls of text whilst interesting are quite exhausting especially when they are small printed A4 sheets with no formatting put behind buckling plastic covers

Some texts were impossible to read as they were behind things like faux prison bars which was a shame.

The Charles Bronson stuff was great albeit a clear indicator of the owners biased leaning towards this criminal but the art should be the centre point of the exhibition not tucked away at the back.

It could stand to lose the diana twaddle as rampant speculation on her death diminishes the authenticity of an otherwise factual museum.

I feel that a lot of enthusiasm and interest went into this, it just needs to be modernised, thinned out and a little more care and consideration put into it.

It also needs a deep clean as the mold smell was pungent throughout regretfully and was evident on some of the soft furnishings.

Price wasn't awful but not reflective of the value.

I do hope the owner has the ability and desire to improve the museum and utilise some impressive curated pieces. I would also caution them from fighting with reviewers they do not like the opinion of. It comes across extremely unprofessional and is likely to put people off. Not everyone will enjoy your establishment, criticism is not as damaging as seemingly calling out every negative review in a non constructive way which I have seen from...

We visited yesterday as it was overcast and not a beach day. We had intentions of visiting several museums starting with Byegone’s in St MaryChurch, an exceptional experience. Buoyed by this visit we hopped on a bus to Torquay harbour to visit the Crime museum and, time permitting, the Military museum. The Crime museum had an encouraging start with an authentic dungeon type smell and a very helpful man selling admission tickets. We stepped into the unknown world of the criminal mind. I was glad that I had brought my reading glasses as there were copious amounts of framed accounts from news articles about the villains and some personal mementos from a few notorious criminals. There was a set of old stocks amongst a few items of torture and some ‘mock up’ scenarios of past conditions of incarceration. There was chilling footage of Fred and Rose West’s evil deeds which we avoided letting the children see as some of the footage, which was all over the news at the time and constantly features on crime programmes, is extremely graphic. I would have liked a warning before entering the museum, that some content may not be suitable for young children. The whole of the museum would have benefited from a good clean with dirty glass covered displays…not adhering to the present Covid sanitising practice, considering multiple sets of hands had been touching the glass and not a person in sight to wipe them clean. The carpeted stairs leading to more glass covered displays were in desperate need of vacuuming. Had there been more attention to cleanliness I would have given more stars. I thought that I should ignore the negative reviews already posted and to form my...