Museum of London Docklands

Squirrelpot

03 Dec 2014

Excellent accessibility and well worth visiting: dreadful toilet

3

3

Date of visit: September 2022

I am a disabled person. I have experience of challenges around: accessing toilets and moving around.

I use or have experience of: disabled toilet

Overall Rating

Average

Very good accessibility throughout, once you're inside! But the ground floor accessible toilet has been very badly arranged - appalling! See below for more details.

Disabled Access In and Around

Average

Approaching the main entrance in any sort of wheelchair is quite quite horrible because there is a big area of old and very rough cobbles which you cannot avoid. I nearly expected my powerchair to disintegrate from all that vibration. But once you're inside it's a joy to get around, with spacious lifts - though some of them were out of service on my visit. One gripe: it is very hard to find the lifts again, as the museum displays snake around all over the place and there isn't enough signage directing you back to the lifts.

Parking & Transport

Excellent

The nearest fully step-free stations are Canary Wharf (Jubilee), Canary Wharf (Elizabeth Line) or West India Quay (DLR). From there it's a short distance to the museum. It's not very well signposted from Canary Wharf stations and you may have to ask passers-by for help with navigation.

Accessible Toilets

Bad

At least two sets of accessible toilets. I used only the accessible toilet on the ground floor, near the reception desk, and there were many problems with it. See my pictures below. The inner door lock is ridiculously high, unreachable by a wheelchair user. Extraordinary that it was decided to place the lock so high in a cubicle which the museum knew would be used by wheelchair users! The paper towel dispenser is too high, unreachable by a wheelchair user. Incredibly thoughtless. A huge bin was obstructing the inner doorway on my visit. Mind-bogglingly silly. See my photo below. This really is appalling: it not only prevents entry into the cubicle, it also obstructs wheelchair users from turning and manoeuvring within the cubicle. There is a small fold-down child's seat near the entrance to the toilet vestibule area which cannot be fixed in the up position. As such it's an obstruction for wheelchair users. The red emergency cord is too short, it should reach all the way to floor, so that it can be reached by anyone who has fallen to the floor in the often precarious transfer from wheelchair to toilet. If it can't be reached by someone who has fallen over, assistance cannot be summoned and in the case of serious injury, delay can be dangerous or even fatal.

Staff

Average

Staff throughout the museum are friendly, and always keen to be helpful in any way possible. Two stars lost for the terrible accessible toilet arrangements.

Additional Information

A fascinating museum, in a former warehouse where sugar from the slave plantations of the West Indies was stored. It's huge, so allocate plenty of time, and don't expect to do it all in detail within the span of a single day. A highlight is the very table on which legislation for the abolition of slavery was drafted in the early 19th Century.