I was lucky enough last week during half term to visit my favourite part of England, the Lake District. It’s somewhere I used to go every year as a child and I’ve been wanting to visit again with my own children. It has to be one of the most beautiful landscapes, and there is so much to see and explore but one of the places I’ve never visited before is the Derwent Pencil museum in Keswick. Now giving that colour pencils have pretty much become my life since becoming a full time artist (other than my family!) it has been high on my list of places to visit. So I don’t think my family were the least bit surprised when I insisted that the one thing we had to do whilst there was visit it!



Now I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who have either never thought of going or are unable to, so I decided that I would share with you what my visit was like and what myself and my family thought about it.



When we arrived the first thing my seven year old twins spotted was the van parked outside the front entrance which they were keen to take a look at. Before actually going into the museum though, we took a detour to the toilets which you can find the entrance to from the front of the building before going in to pay. Very handy to have quick easy access to toilets when travelling with children. To pay for your tickets, you just head straight into the shop. Even though it was half term holidays, we didn’t have to wait long to be served by a very friendly lady, who took the time to engage with the children. One of the features that we all loved was the fact that we were each given a Derwent HB pencil to keep and this was actually our ticket to enter the museum itself. Such a novel idea and my twins were delighted with their complementary pencils and took them home and have been using them since.

We were also all given our own quizzes to do and I liked how we were each lent a clipboard to lean on to write our answers as it can be so frustrating, especially for children, to try and write on paper when there is no flat surface to do so. The other thing that I particularly liked, was how there were different levels of questions to answer depending upon how old you are. There was very simple colouring and tracing over, look and find activities for the youngest children, for older children there was some simple questions to find the answers of and then find the answers in a word search and the adults were presented with 20 more challenging questions. Sometimes at museums and exhibitions, I find my children don’t always complete the activities as they are not engaging enough, or too challenging, we’ve forgotten to bring pencils etc, but they loved finding the answers in the museum and writing them down. This also encouraged them to be more engaged and read some of the information boards, particularly the labels and bold writing and it also taught them a little about pencils. From the adults point of view, my husband and I really enjoyed the quiz we were given and it definitely got me reading all of the information boards. I will hold my hands up and say I tend to be someone who skims all the writing and just look at the objects in museums, but I wanted to get all my questions right with the prospect of a prize at the end! I’m so glad I did, as I found it all really fascinating. Now I’m sure some of that is because I’m so obsessed with pencils, but my husband who is in no way arty and only came with us because he knew how much I wanted to go, found it really interesting too!



Once we had paid our entrance fee (a family of 4 cost £19.50 at the time of writing this) we went through a tunnel which was like walking through the mines. I thought it was a nice touch and a little more interesting than just walking through a door and more importantly the children liked it and they were excited to start exploring.



Once through into the museum, you will find that the exhibition is just in one room. Now you might think it’s not that big but actually they have laid it out really well and fit a lot of information and displays in there for you to see. We found at the first display board there was a few people all trying tor read it at the same time, but then people spread out and even though it was holiday time, we didn’t feel it was too crowded even with quite a few people there.

As well as the information boards on the walls, there is a tv screen where you can choose from a few different videos. I wanted to watch the one of how the pencils are made in the factory. The video itself I found absolutely fascinating. What I would say is it was a shame that they didn’t have any subtitles and with the noise of the other visitors, I couldn’t hear what they were saying. If they could add subtitles this would seriously improve the videos and also make it more inclusive for deaf people. I wish I could have actually seen the pencils being made in the factory in person, but they don’t make them there anymore as they moved premises.



The aspects that I found most interesting myself, were seeing the old Derwent pencils and packaging and how they have changed over the years. I even spotted some tins from the 1980s and 90s that I still have! Also learning more about graphite and the mining of it, how pencils were made and how they’re made now, and in particular about a man called Charles Fraser-Smith and how he used the Derwent pencils to supply equipment and gadgets to secret agents or prisoners of war trying to escape during the Second World War.





From a children’s point of view, my twins loved the fact that there was a colouring area and being near Halloween there were different Halloween pictures they could colour. I loved how the pencils provided on the tables were a variety from the Derwent ranges and not just from the cheaper end. My children particularly loved being able to use the Lightfast range as whilst I let them use most of my hundreds of pencils at home, I’ve not let them loose with those ones yet! I think its great to give the children the opportunity to see what decent pencils are actually like as most children I’m sure will only ever get the chance to use cheap children’s pencils with very little pigment in them. The only improvement would have been being able to sharpen the pencils as they had all gone rather blunt which my children found a little frustrating.



Another highlight for them was the pumpkin wall. My little boy in particular loved the display of children’s pumpkins and was very excited to colour his own one to have added to the wall. When we had finished in the museum and handed it in to one of the ladies in the shop, she made him feel very special. I loved how she asked him if he would like it to go on display and then took the time to cut it out there and then and asked if he would like to go with her to stick it onto the display. She could have quite easily said she would put it on later but that small act meant my little man came out beaming with pride.





They were also really interested in all of the different pencil sharpeners that had been donated to the museum and they were asked to design their own sharpeners on their quiz sheet, which the lady in the shop asked them if they could explain to her making them feel like they had done amazing work.

When we had finished in the museum we took our sheets and clipboards back to the ladies in the shop, who took the time to mark them and talk to the children about what they had done. They were thrilled to receive colour pencils for their efforts and these came in very handy for colouring in the books they purchased in the shop in the car on the way home!



If you are a pencil lover, the shop itself is like a kid visiting a sweet shop! You can find single pencils, tins of pencils, a range of pads of paper, information books, children’s colouring books, notecards, water bottles, the list goes on. My children were very keen to spend a bit of their holiday money choosing a drawing book each. My daughter choose a Christmas activity book and my little boy chose learn how to draw dragons. It was nice for them to take the time to look at the books in person rather than choose something from the internet.

There is also a cafe right next to the shop which looked lovely, but we didn't visit on this particular occasion.

Overall we all throughly enjoyed our visit to the pencil museum and a big thank you to the two ladies working there who made our experience even more enjoyable. Even my husband who didn’t think he would like it really did and came away feeling like it was a few hours very well spent. I thought it would take about an hour, but in total we ended up being there for over 2 hours so I’m glad I purchased 3 hours for the car parking which cost me £3. You can park right outside the museum, but note it is not run by the museum itself and you have to pay for parking, although I found it quite reasonable compared to many car parks in the Lakes.

I would personally recommend visiting here if you are in the Lake District as it’s a fun and informative way to spend an hour or two. As we weren’t staying in Keswick ourselves, we tied it in with taking a picnic and visiting Derwent Lake. If you plan on visiting yourself, check out their website Derwent Pencil Museum for up to date prices and opening hours as in the winter months, they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.