This is a guest post by Mel Webster. She is studying at the University of Central Lancashire and blogs at What do you do in Preston? If you’d like to write a guest post for Preston Blog see how you can get involved.

The Museum of Lancashire is housed in the Grade II listed former Preston Quarter Sessions House building.

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NOT what I thought as I drove into the Museum of Lancashire’s car park.

Let’s go back a little first though shall we? Due to a strange turn of events, I live in Preston. Due to an entirely more predictable turn of events, my best friend lives in London and had decided to visit me in Preston.

After ascertaining that no, she did not want to sit in my house with the broken boiler and no, she did not want to go to the pet shop for something to do, we set out, complete with hangovers for the Museum of Lancashire.

First impressions were dire to be honest. We sat (complete with my boyfriend who had also decided that he didn’t want to sit in the boilerless house) in the car, in the rain, trying to work out if £3 was too expensive to enter what looked from the back to be an old psychiatric hospital.

Afer a good five minutes we made it the pay desk, still negotiating whether this was a good idea owing to the exhibition on the M6 clearly visible from said pay desk.

Scared of the frowning pay desk ladies we paid to go in.

You can’t help but notice it’s all a little homemade, especially the wax works in the medieval section (did you know the church more or less gave up on Preston for being such a sexually depraved town?)

But. And here is the good bit, there is a dressing up box in every room. Of course the clothes are all for kids but if you’re under a size 12 I reckon most of them should fit and if not, there are props.

If I could work this blog I would post highly embarrassing photos of me as a soldier, a child in a Victorian school room, in a gas mask, dressed in my road safety gear. But I can’t. So you’ll just have to imagine it.

Also if you’re interested in military history or, heavens forbid, the history of motorways, it’s well worth your £3. They have an impressive selection of old military jackets. Great if, like me, you love a gold button or two.

So there you have it.

The Museum of Lancashire. It’s not that bad.