Glasgow Museums Resource Centre #4

With the bowling club still being refurbished, 19 of us had a tasty roll and hot drink in The Pad and then headed for the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC) in Nitshill for our fourth visit and another one-hour tour.

This time round, our guide was called Billy and, along with his colleague Molly, they took us into a few new pods and a few that some of us had already been in but things change regularly here as exhibits move back and forth from Glasgow's museums.

After a whistle-stop pass by of the meteorite we saw (and tried to lift) last time, Billy took us into the Geology and Botany pod, which was strangely home to a huge collection of butterflies. These are kept in specially made, wooden Victorian cases and there had to be hundreds of trays in there. Most of this was the work of one collector and, even though he had documented almost every single specimen, work is still ongoing to complete it.

Here's a few photos of us and some butterflies:

After that, Billy took us into another art pod, where we saw a few paintings that we hadn't previously seen. One was of a tennis scene by "Glasgow Boys" artists Sir John Lavery, a work by cartoonist Art Spiegelman and a sketch of Shaggy and Scooby-Doo by their creater Iwao Takamoto.

Billy then took us into another Natural History pod, this one focusing on skeletal remains. They had elephant and hippopotamus bones; lots of skeletons such as big cats, horses, dolphins, and camels, etc.; and they even had a couple of jaw bones from whales. A wee bit macabre to see all these remains but interesting nevertheless.

Next, we went back into the Arms and Armour pod as that was pretty popular before and a few of our newer members hadn't been there. As before, the place is stuffed with swords, guns, spears, lances and suits of armour and Billy gave a us some information of the different types on view. He also showed us a Congreve Rocket - a kind of early, hand-held rocket launcher that dates from the 19th-century and was based on an 18th-century Indian weapon used against the British during the Anglo-Mysore Wars.

Then, he gave us a couple of replica swords, a flintlock gun and a bit of chain mail to hold and pass round, which was pretty cool. Swords are really heavy, chain mail not so much as you'd think.

Finally, we went back to the Transportation pod as, again, some of us hadn't been there and Billy said there were a few new vehicles in that we might like to see. There were a few more classic motorcycles, a fancy caravan, a fire engine and a mail coach.

With over 1.4 million objects in over 15,000 square metres, there's still much more to see so GMRC is still a place to visit again in the future. You can find out more about it here and there are links on there to download a visual storyboard or view a virtual tour:

• https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/glasgow-museums-resource-centre-gmrc

You can also read all about our earlier visits to the resource centre here:

• Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

• Glasgow Museums Resource Centre #2

• Glasgow Museums Resource Centre #3 

The full set of photos taken on all of our visits to GMRC are here, with better descriptions: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBrZsb and https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAJTJL