There are a lot of museums in London. Of course, there are world-famous names like the British Museum and Natural History Museum. But then there are many tiny plain peculiar museums in every corner of the city.

18 Stafford Terrace

The Kensington address provides a chance to see a late-Victorian, middle-class home that has survived largely unchanged. The house was passed on from one generation of the family to the next and almost all the original decoration remains unchanged. The house closes during summer for maintenance.

Opening hours: 2 pm — 5:30 pm Wed, Sat, Sun

Brunel Museum

An exhibition celebrates the Thames Tunnel as the birthplace of the tube system, and the Great Eastern steamship as the first modern ocean liner. The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and International Landmark Site above the oldest tunnel in the Underground, which tells the story of the men who worked in the dark, dodging flames and raw sewage every day.

Opening hours: Daily 10 am — 5 pm

The Cinema Museum

This collection of artifacts, memorabilia and equipment telling the history of cinema from the 1890s to the present is open by tour (advance booking required) while the museum raises funds to secure its future. Among the displays are cinema seats and signs, stills and posters, projectors and other machinery.

Opening hours: 11 am — 5 pm Mon-Fri by appointment only

Dennis Severs’ House

Dennis Severs’ House is a time capsule attraction in which visitors are immersed in a unique form of theatre. The tour takes you through the cellar, kitchen, dining room, smoking room and upstairs to the bedrooms. It feels as though the inhabitants had deserted the rooms only moments before. The Dennis Severs House tour is unsuitable for children as tours are conducted in silence.

Opening hours: Wed, Fri 5 pm — 9 pm

【小题1】The concept for Disneyland began when Walt Disney was visiting an Amusement Park in Los Angeles with his daughters. While watching them ride the merry-go-round, he came up with the idea of a place where adults and their children could go and have fun together, but his dream remained inactive for many years.

In the early 1940s, kids started asking to see where Mickey Mouse and Snow White lived. Disney thought of building a character display beside the studio. The original concept, the Mickey Mouse Park, started with an 8-acre plot. 【小题2】 Disney bought a 160-acre site near Anaheim in 1953. Construction began on July 16, 1954. Studio employee worked on the project, paid from Disney's personal funds.

【小题3】 On Sunday, July 17, 1955, the first guests arrived. A guess list of 15, 000 swelled to almost 30, 000. Traffic was delayed on the two-lane Harbor Boulevard. Famous figures that were scheduled to show up every two hours appeared all at once. Rides and attractions broke down under the pressure of too many guests. Some parents threw their children over the crowd's shoulders to get them on to rides. 【小题4】

After the extremely negative press from the preview opening, Walt Disney invited guests back for a private "second day" to experience Disneyland properly. In order to avoid overcrowding, Walt and his staff began to limit daily attendance to 20,000. 【小题5】 Since then, Disneyland has a larger cumulative attendance than any other theme park in the world.

The rumor proved all too bitterly true: Park’s hardware, a downtown institution of Orono for over 100 years, would be closing. Locals cross-examined, and begged Lin, the owner of the store, but it seemed useless. Running a small, local, family-owned hardware business was no longer profit maker. The town’s love for Park’s Hardware was just not enough to allow it to compete against the giant warehouse stores.

I was one member of the excited masses that began to walk through Park’s as, day by day, the lettering on the front window changed from “20% OFF EVERYTHING” to “30%,” “40%,” and on and on, until the only things left were the light sockets and doorknobs.

Compared with giant warehouses, a hardware store is special. I recall the time I was exploring in one giant warehouse for a wireless doorbell that Park’s didn’t carry. I found the thing, but didn’t understand the following note on the package: “Red light indicates condition of the battery.” “Excuse me,” I said to a clerk, holding the item out, “I can’t seem to find the red light.” The man examined it, and said, “Neither can I.” I compared this experience with one I usually had at Park’s. “Lin,” I’d beg. “Can you…please…I don’t know…do you think…?” And quicker than one could say, “little red light,” Lin would spring into action and together we’d sit down to find the solution.

I could buy a single screw at Park’s. At a warehouse I have no choice but to buy a box of a hundred screws. But I don’t want a box of a hundred screws when all I need is one. I just want to know the location of the little red light, and now that Park’s is gone, I realize that I never will.