Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.
Put yourself in the place of a foreign visitor who planned a trip to the UK well in advance. Around half a million overseas tourists are currently here. While they doubtless sympathise with the royal family and the wider public grief over the death of the Queen, they understandably want to make the most of their limited time here. Yet with the unexpected bank holiday on Monday to mark Her Majesty’s funeral, what will they do all day ?
The government says organisations can decide for themselves: “Public museums, galleries or similar venues are not obliged to close during the national mourning period. Organisations may choose to close on the day of the state funeral, however there is no obligation to do so.”
The UK tourism industry was severely damaged by the coronavirus pandemic. VisitBritain is predicting incoming arrivals this year will be 35 per cent down on 2019 levels, with spend down almost a quarter.
I imagined that most visitor attractions would want to open for at least part of Monday. While many staff will wish to watch the state funeral, there is also an imperative to meet demand from both overseas visitors and British people with a sudden bank holiday on their hands.
How wrong I was. The big hitters for historical venues – the National Trust and English Heritage – will close respectively to “pay tribute” and as “a mark of respect” to Her Majesty.
With around half the UK’s inbound tourists currently in London, I wanted to recommend some alternative days out for them. I started searching among the less well-known but still excellent museums in the capital. The fascinating new Museum of the Home in north London is normally open on bank holidays, but not this one. The same goes for the Horniman in south London (though the gardens are open). The Museum of London Docklands will be shut.
I then cast my net wider. For a tourist starting in the capital, trains leaving in the morning and returning in the evening should be relatively empty. The most obvious target is Brighton: an hour south by train, boasting the spectacular Royal Pavilion and an excellent city museum. But both are closed on Monday.
Along the south coast in Bournemouth, the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum will not be welcoming anyone on Monday. Further north, the Oxbridge pair of dazzling museums – the Ashmolean in Oxford and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge – will be locked.
Wider, still, and wider: in Bath, people who bought tickets for Monday for the city’s Roman baths will get an automatic refund. On Monday no one will be able to visit Shakespeare’s Family Homes in Stratford-upon-Avon. Or, in Kent, Canterbury Cathedral or the Turner Contemporary in Margate.
The final frontier? The National Space Centre in Leicester and Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire will be on the dark side.
In desperation to find a cultural day out from London, I even checked the Beaux-Arts museum in Lille in northern France, which will be opening 2-6pm on Monday. But the day return fare on Eurostar is a challenging £289.
Finally, I found an answer for the tourist in need of an attraction: the Travel Things Museum in Islington, north London. Open Monday, from 11am to 8pm, free, no booking required. The pop-up exhibition (continuing to 25 September) is part of the London Design Festival.
The venue: a vast, empty store at 116 Upper Street, London N1 1AB. I checked in at the museum on Friday and met the founder, Jill Tsai. She calls the enterprise: “A diverse, eclectic and juxtaposed assortment of traditionally crafted pieces, artisans’ treasures, architectural accessories; vernacular packaging of ephemeral items for accessories, toys or consumables, and discarded objects rediscovered.”
The tourist will find Mandela tea from South Africa, coco de mer from the Seychelles and a stick of Brighton rock – and virtual reality seven-minute Caribbean dash from Barbados to St Lucia to Jamaica. A proper and respectful Commonwealth tour.
