Museum marks 'passing' of Britain's pubs
A museum has responded to the plight of Britain's pubs by opening the first exhibit dedicated to the UK's vanishing inns.
Curators at the Carnegie Museum in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, want to record the town's drinking history before last orders are called forever.
The display will include pub signs, beermats, bottles, mugs, mirrors, tankards and menus of food served now and in times gone by.
Entitled Our Local, the exhibition will allow visitors to sit on bar stools and play traditional games.
Museum keeper Jenny Dancey said: "It struck me that local pubs are fast disappearing and we should make a record of them before they vanish.
"This exhibition is all about recording the pubs in the town and nearby villages before any more close or become converted to something else."
CAMRA spokesman Jon Howard added: "I haven't heard of this happening anywhere else. It's a fantastic idea.
"It would be wonderful if other places did something similar, because there should be a national record of pubs before even more disappear. Exhibitions like these would focus people's minds on the loss so many pubs, which in some cases had been the hub of communities for centuries."
