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There’s a fire engine and a castle and a log cabin and a big body-encasing bubble and a grocery store. These are but a few of the delights that await youngsters at the Meredith Children’s Museum on Lang Street in Meredith.
Historically the museum has been around for over fifteen years. Says owner, John Carrigg, “The museum was started in Center Harbor. I had been to lots of children’s museums in other places and thought the concept would do well in the Lakes Region. When the Lang Street property became available, I moved the museum to this location because there was a lot more room.” That was in about 1994. Indeed, this writer’s two children grew up going to the museum, sometimes on a weekly basis. It’s the perfect place for kids from infant to upper elementary school. Whether boy or girl (I have one of each), the museum is a great place to bring your kids to let off some steam, or simply to meet and play with tons of other children.
Carrigg had lots of great ideas for the interactive displays and play areas he wanted for the larger space. Suddenly he had more than ample room to spread out to create some wonderful, highly unusual places for kids to play and learn about the world. Why? Because the Lang Street property was an elementary school for many years, built originally for children. The rooms were just right for kids – lots of big blackboards, large spaces, and huge windows that let in the bright and cheerful light.
“The school was about seventy-five to eighty years old when I bought it,“ Carrigg remembers. “It had been emptied because a new elementary school had been built. It was perfect for a museum for children, but it needed lots of work to bring it up to speed for our needs.”
Indeed, the electrical needed updating, and the building was not ADA-accessible, so Carrigg installed handicapped access ramping in the rear of the building. Other work, such as cosmetics, was done to brighten and modernize the rooms.
Brian Allen, a local carpenter, worked with Carrigg to build the displays that kids adore. “We refined some of the things we had in the Center Harbor museum, such as the ball room. I originally had the idea for a room with gears and balls. It worked well in the Center Harbor museum, but we were able to refine the design and make it work better here,” says Carrigg.
The ball room is huge and a definite favorite of kids from toddler age all the way up to adults. Simply put, it teaches how billiard balls move down a system of tracks and pulleys when kids turn a hand crank. The track runs in a winding course around the room and displays gravity in all its wonders.
One cannot help but imagine all the kids who came here when the museum opened that are now graduating from high school and thinking seriously of a career in science or engineering thanks to this particular Children’s Museum display.
Speaking of all the hundreds, or probably thousands, of children who have played at this special place, many have grown and are now in high school or college. Do they come back to relive this local slice of childhood fun? “Definitely yes,” Carrigg smiles. “Just last week we had the Plymouth Playground group here for a visit. There were about forty children who came with their camp counselors. When the group was planning day trips for the campers, many of the counselors suggested a trip to the museum because they had been here as kids and remembered how much fun it was.”
People do remember the museum with fondness. One grandmother who was visiting the museum with her grandchildren was overheard recently explaining to the children that she “brought mommy here when she was a child.” If the measure of success for the museum is the fond memories and stories people have of the business, then it has been affective beyond Carrigg’s wildest dreams.
“I have a theory,” he says. “Kids come here from about age three and up. They come back the next year and they are taller. EVERYTHING LOOKS DIFFERENT TO THEM. As they grow, the exhibits that they didn’t pay attention to one year become fascinating the next year when they are bigger. There’s one reason we remain popular.”
Carrigg says that among the exhibits, the child-sized grocery store is the most popular. This might be because kids love to imitate parents and all kids accompany parents to the grocery store. The well-outfitted grocery store offers kids a great chance to use their imaginations and interact with other children. Learning to take turns, use their motor and reasoning skills and to just laugh and play with others make the grocery store area a big success.
For kids who need to burn off some pent-up energy, the castle room is just the thing. A big wooden castle offers tunnels to crawl through and an upper area where young ones can take a slide to the level where parents wait to catch them. The castle and slide, like all things at the museum, are built for safety first. In this room there is also a big wooden fire engine that kids can sit in and pretend they are real firemen. A pretend gas tank is next to the engine, so kids can say, “Fill her up!” as they pretend to drive the engine.
The giant Lincoln Log cabin was built before the museum opened by a Sandwich, New Hampshire carpenter. “He wouldn’t take any pay for building it,” John recalls. “He was here overnight building it right before we opened. When I tried to pay him he wouldn’t take compensation. He said it was ‘for the kids.’”
That attitude of providing a wonderful space “for the kids” is what the museum is all about.
Carrigg says he has been determined over the years to keep the museum alive because he knows how important it is for local children and visitors to the area to have a place such as the Children’s Museum.
“My grandchildren love this place. When I see how much they enjoy it, I know it’s definitely worthwhile,” he says.
Other favorite areas of the museum, Carrigg says, are the bubble area and the castle. In the bubble area, kids step inside a big tire. As a gear turned, a big hula hoop rises from a soap bubble mixture inside the tire, and a giant bubble forms and encases the child. This is every kid’s dream come true, to not only make the biggest bubble ever, but to actually feel what it is like to be inside the bubble!
After all that running around, kids can sit down and check out areas where locks and gadgets offer a chance to sit and test their brain power. Kids also love such simple offerings as spinning tops, magnetic bolts, maps and much more.
The delights of the Meredith Children’s Museum are sure to bring pleasure and memories to last a lifetime to kids of all ages.
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