The Bowes Museum Blog

What is it like being a guide at The Bowes Museum?

It’s stimulating, uplifting and fun!

Our twenty guides come from a wide variety of backgrounds and they bring their different skills, talents and interests to their talks and tours. If you enjoy meeting and talking with people and want to find out more about The Bowes Museum yourself or already have an interest in paintings, ceramics, furniture etc then this is something you might really enjoy.

Some of our newer guides tell us that it feels a little daunting at first but everyone is kindly supported along an induction pathway, at their own pace, in their own way and in their own time. Suddenly the confidence and sense of independence appear and then guiding surprisingly becomes an addiction, alongside an ongoing personal curiosity and desire to know more and more about the extraordinary story of Joséphine and John, their museum and its collections. To be able to share this knowledge and your personal insights with visitors, whoever they are and from wherever they come, is truly rewarding and seeing the happy faces of visitors at the end of a talk or tour.

Guides also have the opportunity to attend special lectures, talks and updates on the collections throughout the year, join social events arranged for volunteers and make new friends in the volunteers’ community. The museum is a wonderful place in which to spend time, always uplifting and life enhancing.