Lottie Tempest Mountford

A MUCH-LOVED family museum that holds some of Islington’s most intriguing memorabilia – including a series of “boring” library books defaced by a famous Islington couple, a float full of milk churns from Lloyd’s Dairy, and a collection of radical badges – is due to have a makeover.

Islington Museum in St John Street will show off its plans for the future as part of a consultation survey running through to next month.

One key change at the museum, home to 10,000 objects and archive materials about the borough’s history, will be giving the gloomy courtyard a spruce-up with a coffee stall and plants. The changes follow on from comments in focus groups that the courtyard wasn’t inviting.

Signage of the museum will also become more visible and welcoming and space will be made available for different groups.

Lottie Tempest Mountford, the museum’s heritage learning officer, said: “People love the collection of the stories on display, families like the play spaces [but] the key things that came up that were challenges or issues are all about the entrance way, finding the museum and knowing who it is for from outside.

The books Joe Orton defaced

“The welcome desk is miles from the front door – it’s all that experience of how you first come in and feel welcomed and know how to navigate the space.”

She said the museum had built up an extensive LGBTQ+ archive but at present were unable to display it – and that under changes she wanted all groups in the borough to feel they are represented in the history of the borough.

Other possible changes could see more interactive displays brought in, and the children’s area livened up.

Exhibits include the library books defaced by 1960s playwright Joe Orton and his lover – and killer – Kenneth Halliwell.

They chose titles they considered to be dull and marked them up with inserted pictures and sentences of their own choosing. They also wallpapered parts of their Noel Road home in Angel using pictures they cut from the books.

Milk churns come from Lloyd’s dairy and were used until the end of the Second World War. Among the protest badges displayed are Occupy London, Free Nelson Mandela, Gay Pride 1981 and many Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Ms Tempest Mountford said: “We want people to leave with a stronger sense of what Islington might mean and what its story is and how it developed, rather than purely pockets of history.”

The museum will close in summer and reopen in spring 2023.