New Plymouth museum and art gallery opens with Mayflower and mammoths

One of the galleries features both a full-scale model of a woolly mammoth and a collection of tiny sea creatures pickled in jars that look more like an installation by Damien Hirst than a city museum exhibit.

A second is dominated by a replica of the Mayflower, the ship that sailed from the UK to what is now the US exactly 400 years ago, but also highlights precious artefacts and images that tell the story of the indigenous people who suffered in the decades following the ship’s landing.

Plymouth’s new £46m museum, art gallery and archive, the Box, is a place of startling contrasts.

Visitors will learn more about the seafarers that set sail from Plymouth in search of fame, fortune and adventure.

But the Box does not shy away from the bleaker side of history: the death and destruction caused by some of the voyagers, or the central part UK maritime cities such as Plymouth played in the slave trade.

The venue’s interim chief executive, Paul Brookes, said the intention was to take risks. “We hope what we have ended up with is an eclectic range of galleries each with a different feel to it,” he said. “Together we hope they give a greater understanding of Plymouth’s history and its future.”

The ambitious project brings together three separate buildings: the city’s former museum and art gallery, central library and a church, St Luke’s.

Rather than tucking away the city’s archive in a basement, it forms a central part of the new centre. Controversially, the Box claims that one document in the archive proves that the pasty is a Devonian rather than a Cornish invention.

The first impression for the visitor is a vivid reminder of Plymouth’s naval history, with 14 beautifully restored ship figureheads soaring over the entrance hall.

One of the ground floor galleries is called 100 Journeys and highlights some of the voyages that began at Plymouth. On display are Sir Francis Drake’s sword, Scott of the Antarctic’s skis and mittens and Charles Darwin’s sextant. Another cabinet, however, tells the story of slave trader John Hawkins and contains iron neckcuffs and handcuffs.

Upstairs, a temporary commemorative exhibition, Mayflower 400: Legend & Legacy, focuses both on the voyage of the ship, four centuries after it left Plymouth, and the impact its arrival had on the indigenous Wampanoag people.

One wall of the gallery brims with images of descendants of the first European settlers, including US politicians and Hollywood actors, alongside pictures of Wampanoag people such as Amelia Bingham, a clan mother, who writes on the back of her likeness: “Our history was literally stolen from us. The way the Wampanoag have been portrayed by the white man is shameful.”

Jo Loosemore, who co-curated the exhibition with members of the Wampanoag nation, said: “From the start we knew this was a shared story, a shared history.”

Because of Covid-19 none of the Wampanoag people have been able to travel to see the exhibition in situ. “But they are with us in spirit,” said Loosemore.

Elsewhere in the Box there is a cave lion skeleton – animals that were native to Plymouth, as were woolly mammoths – and a bronze age bear pelt. And away from the main site a new Antony Gormley statue has been craned into place as part of the Box project gazing out to sea from Plymouth Hoe.

Covid has made finishing the project difficult. The Box was due to open in May but had to postpone because of the pandemic. The first members of the public will be able to visit on 29 September.

The Box is seen as an important element in the city’s post-Covid recovery programme, which has been dubbed “Resurgam”, meaning “I will rise again”. The word and sentiment became part of Plymouth’s history after someone daubed it on to a sign at the wreckage of a city church bombed in the second world war.

Tudor Evans, the city council leader, said: “It feels like a long time coming but the Box is a vital part of our recovery programme.”

Evans is keen on the figureheads and the mammoth, which he says was made by the same people who created the Chewbacca costume for Star Wars.

“I also like the 100 Journeys. Plymouth is a place from which so many significant voyages set sail. We don’t flinch from telling the uncomfortable stories. You don’t tell the bits of the story that are nice; you tell the whole story. I can’t wait for the doors to open.”