Galleries of Justice

Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance...
 

Give us a potted history of the Galleries of Justice...
The museum is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. We’ve got working courtrooms, both criminal and civil, with Victorian courtrooms underneath which closed in the 1860s, and an Edwardian police station that closed in the 1980s. The Galleries of Justice Museum Trust was set up 22 years ago when a combination of people saved it from being demolished: one was a lawyer from Reading who wanted to set up a law museum. It was serendipitous that he connected with some people in Nottingham - one of which was Mich Stevenson, who set up the Lace Market Heritage Trust - with a view to renovate not just this building but the whole area.

How do you work with the businesses around you?
During the recession, lots of cultural organisations had cuts and were willing to work with us. We have charity banquets where local businesses become part of what we do. There’s a natural link with legal firms, but other firms see the value of being part of an iconic Nottingham building. The National Centre of Citizenship and the Law deliver public education in the courtrooms - they do crime prevention activities, civil law learning, and raise aspirations so kids can imagine themselves as a barrister or a lawyer. The Crime and Drugs Partnership is here too, as well as other tenants like Iberico and Divine.

The Galleries of Justice won the Visit England Gold Award and the Small Visitor Attraction of 2014, what gave you the edge over the competition?
Over the last twenty years we’ve won every major heritage and arts awards, and in 2003 we won the biggest arts award, the Gulbenkian prize. It comes down to the people who work here; we’ve got a fantastic, committed team. I’m not being glib, people choose to work here because they want to make a difference - people are interested in the social and education sides as well as being fascinated by the building. It’s fun working here - we’ve got a really good group of people.

What made you want to work with the Galleries of Justice?
I used to be a teacher, so I wanted this fantastic site to teach children through kinaesthetic learning - acting out mock trials and scenarios, exploring issues relating to crime. Getting kids out of the classroom just adds to their learning, it has a big impact.

What’s your favourite part of the Galleries of Justice experience?
The interaction. Space-wise, the courtrooms are the most dramatic, they’re like mini theatres. But for me it’s the actors. We have costumed interpreters here and they bring everything alive. You’ll have a court usher or a judge or a jailer who interacts with the visitors as they come round and that’s the exciting bit, it recreates history.

What do you think to the levels of crime in Nottingham right now?
Ten years ago the city had a reputation for crime and we, together with other agencies, have been at the forefront of moving away from that. Nottingham’s crime levels aren’t spoken about so much now and a lot of that is from teaching kids rights and responsibilities. We’re not about preventing crime, we’re about early intervention. If a kid comes here and learns about crime and its repercussions, does it make them think twice? Working with the crime commissioner and organisations like Groundwork leads to more responsible young people.

You cater for young and old. What do you think is the universal appeal?
Someone once said “morbid fascination” - that’s a really good term. People have always been attracted to the darker side, so while the museum is multi-layered and there’s all this information about the political history of Nottingham and the reform bill rioters, what we seem be fascinated by is the darker elements of imprisonment and execution. If you turn on your TV, it’s crime people are fascinated by; what motivates people, what kind of people are criminals and what happens to them.

Tell us about the Get Up, Stand Up project...
Most history in this country is related to a niche group of people - white males. We want to make our museums more relevant to our multi-cultural population, so we looked at international themes. Some twentieth century key civil rights figures were originally lawyers - Gandhi, Nehru, and Nelson Mandela, for example, were all barristers. We wanted to tell their stories. Mandela went from being a barrister to life imprisonment and then became the President of South Africa. The project is a multi-sensory experience created by young people for young people, through working with New Art Exchange. It’s been a great relationship between an arts-based organisation in Hyson Green and a city centre attraction, opening our doors to different audiences.

photography: David Parry
 

The Galleries of Justice looks after the City of Caves as well. What are your hopes for them?
With the City of Caves we look back at people’s lives when they were forced to work underground in difficult working conditions, like the tannery. It’s a strange experience because you’re in the middle of a sixties shopping centre, then you open the door and you’re in this labyrinth of caves. Intu have got an ambitious plan to redevelop the centre, that’s going to really benefit the Caves. With the castle investment in 2019, we’ll get more people coming here. Currently the Caves get about 80% of its visitors from people in the city, or within an hour’s drive. The shopping centre will be open later into the evening so we’d like to do more after dark events. Ghosts and the supernatural are very popular and the Caves are a very spooky area. Our caves link to other cave systems, so there’s potential to open some more up too.

Most Haunted voted Galleries of Justice the most haunted building in the UK. Have you had any spooky experiences?
A lot of people have. I personally can’t say I’ve seen anything but the building has an energy about it. The dungeon and the Sheriff’s Courtroom are the most haunted areas. But these offices, once used by the police, aren’t a comfortable place to be at night. You don’t want to linger... I’ve had uncomfortable experiences. I was in a meeting and I heard this strange noise rushing through my ears. I looked round and nothing was there, I didn’t know what was going on. We got a priest in a few years ago to bless some of the areas - the building needed something strong and positive to lift some of the ambience. Whatever your beliefs are, it’s not always as tangible as ghosts, but there’s a spirit there that can be quite negative. But there’s also a very positive spirit, with the people that work here and the guests, so they equal each other out. The negativity is in places where there’s not many people. If you wander around a little more off-peak, you can feel it more readily.

What have psychics said about the area of an evening?
They recognise some of the lost souls that come to the fore and reflect as negative energy. People suffered in this building for hundreds of years and it left some degree of memory. I’m not particularly superstitious but having worked here for a number of years, you do recognise something. Some people are more sensitive than others. One woman who worked here left after a few months. We shared an office, she was into the psychic experience and brought crystals in. They darkened during the day. After a few months, she got headaches and felt so uncomfortable that she couldn’t do it anymore.

How popular are the overnight stays?
It is an experience. It’s mostly people who are enthusiastic about the supernatural. I’ve been on some and you don’t really want to be sat down there in the dark for very long. There’s a real sense of solitude down the Sheriff’s Dungeon in the cave system - it feels like you’re lost in time. Then there’s the staircase that leads to nowhere, the original staircase to the Sheriff’s Hall. The history is fascinating. People come from all over the country to experience it. Some events are very scientific, there are experiments. Then there are some of our more light-hearted corporate events, the ghost nights, that are more for entertainment.

What do you think is the lasting appeal of Galleries of Justice?
We attract people because we engage with them throughout the experience - it’s fun but you are still learning about history. We’re not losing sight of the heritage but we try to keep it exciting. The advantage we have is that we’re independent so we can operate in terms of what the public wants and the cycle of the museum, because we haven’t got core funding.

What are you focusing on this year?
Aside from committing to diversity and exploring international themes, we’re looking at a Heritage Lottery Fund of our own to open up the site to allow more dwelling time, so we can use more technology. We’ve just had funding from the Arts Council to deliver our services at other museums in the East Midlands: we’re delivering public legal education in the courts in Manchester, and at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, plus we’re opening up in Cardiff.

We’ve got a corporate programme called Help a Nottinghamshire Child which funds children to get into the museum for free. As a charity, we’ve got a trustees board that we’re redeveloping to bring in different skill sets. It’s not easy with funding but our visitor numbers have never been higher in the last ten years, so there is goodwill. Nottingham seems to be more and more vibrant, like with the Creative Quarter, which we’re part of. There are more tourists, there’s more business energy; it’s becoming a lot more dynamic. One example is Light Night - there was such an energy this year, such a sense of community.

Where do you see the Galleries of Justice in five years?
Our ambition is to be a 24-hour experience and we’re almost there, in terms of the ghost nights. We want to be more technologically orientated, to have people create their own tours, and while actors will still be pivotal to what we do, we want people to be able to access the site in different ways. I’d also like to see more national centres around the country replicating what we do here.