Museum of Paderborn City History the jpoc guide This small museum is located in the old timber framed Adam and Eve house in the old part of the city. The building itself forms a major part of the exhibit and it is a really lovely sight. However, judging by the photos on display, the renovation process that took place in the latter part of the 20th century was really more of a complete rebuilding operation in the style of the original. Much of the structure was replaced and so only parts of the house merit study as an old building. The museum's remit is the history of the city of Paderborn. Mostly, it contains photos and reproductions of old documents. There are also a few old relics from the city's past and some local paintings. There is also an interesting geological cutaway model that illustrates the way in which all of the springs arise in the city plus an explanation of the various different sources of the water. Of more modern times, there is a homage to the tram system that used to run in Paderborn including sad photos of the last ever tram run. Also, there is a section devoted to the history of Paderborn during the years of National Socialism. Lastly, there were some interesting tableaux of street scenes from earlier days. The muesum is moderately child proof but there were some weaknesses to be exploited.
Practicalities Address: Adam und Eva Haus, Hathumarstr. 7-9, 33098 Paderborn Phone: (05251) 88-1350 Open: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00 Cost: Free You can walk round and see all of the exhibits in thirty to fifty minutes.	Facilities No toilets that I could find. I'm sorry to say that there is absolutely no scope for disabled access but of course, it is hard to see how this could have been arranged without gutting the interior of the building. There is no cafe in the museum but there are others nearby. There was a shop with a reasonable selection of books and other material but all in German. Given that Paderborn has a huge English population thanks to the British army, I'd have thought that they could do better than that.
Making Sense of it all All of the exhibits were well captioned but in German only. The were no English speaking staff when we visited.	Links Home My home page Museums My museums page Paderborn My Paderborn page
The JPOC review Because of the nature of the building, the museum is small dark and cramped. There is of course little to be done about that if it is to be housed here. My German is good enough to understand the captions on the exhibits and they seemed OK to me. While I found the contents and setting to be interesting, it was a shame that many of the exhibits were merely reporductions. It gets a rating of two out of five which is as good as possible for a small museum in my scheme of things.