Great way to spend a few hours and interesting and well curated displays. Suggested £5 donation each which we were more than happy to do. Great to see a few groups of school kids enjoying it too. Fantastic set of stuffed animals which sounds very dull but more than I have ever seen before and very well done. Hadrian’s wall room also excellent.

Enjoyable visit to this museum. Definately worth it if you have a couple of hours spare. We didnt use the cafe having read some previous reviews but this didnt effect us as only there for 2 hours. We particularly enjoyed the local history aspect and of course the stuffed animals. Not sure if we would visit again but was glad we did it the once.

This museum is free to enter. There is a very large and excellent exhibition about Hadrian‘s wall. They were plenty of other exhibitions, all of which were very good. We enjoyed the visit, but the only downside was a very large party of young school children who were not very well supervised.

First visit for many years - really loved it. Favourite was the Roman room with so much fascinating to see. Of course the natural history displays are good too. Definitely worth a visit if you have some interest in the local area. Added benefit: a lovely little cafe, with a deliciouls freshly made sandwich for lunch, happy noises from bunches of school childern, and it is FREE. (The suggested £5 donation is still great value.)

Nice little museum that's free to get in and takes around 2 hours to get around. The building is in town and you can park at the Hancock, 5 min walk away for a max 2 hrs for around £3.60. Museum is on 2 floors and is general world history including Roman, Egypt, Space, Mineral, local wildlife and other general UK finds

We went as two adults and an 8,6 and 5 year old. It was brilliant! Some brilliant exhibitions, the Pysch one was a highlight, small but very interesting. It’s a perfect size and on a Wednesday afternoon in school holidays didn’t feel too busy. Great summer activities for kids, all of them had a great time with the erosion experiment in the Clore suite, the volunteers running it were informative and good with the kids.. All the staff were great too. We paid for the planetarium and it was worth it if you can afford it, we saw the ‘we are aliens’ show and it was engaging and informative’. It’s free but we made a £5 donation as it’s such a great museum and I’d highly recommend this over Life centre.

Really impressed with the museum. We visited for half a day with a young wheelchair user. The staff were helpful and accommodating and opened up the staff car park when we couldn’t get a blue badge space. They waited patiently for us to unload to give us access into the musuem. The access around the museum was great with automatic doors and lifts. The changing facilities were great with a large changing bed. (Anyone requiring a changing places bed can use the one at the university across the street). There was also a poster advertising spare pads, nappies and wipes in lockers around the museum. During the holidays there is a packed lunch space available, which is really handy. There is something for everyone in the permanent and temporary exhibitions. The planetarium is worth a visit and there are different shows across the day with a small charge. The Lego build was great for my 8 year old. We also attended a story session for under 5s which had some sensory elements which was really inclusive. The staff member was lovely and ensured we had enjoyed it! We will definitely go back!

An absolutely amazing day, I visited with my 3 year old granddaughter and we loved every moment. She told me she knew about Museums because Peppa Pig had been and seen dinosaur bones. So needless to say when we saw dinosaur bones she was over the moon. She also loved the Lego experience, creating her own eco place. We giggled and laughed through the green see experience watching ourselves inside a space ship. Thoroughly enjoyed everything from the jigsaws to the dressing up. Thought the animals were magical. My granddaughter is going away with her parents to a caravan for a week, she told her mum, she didn’t want to go, instead she wanted to go back to the museum with them,

A good free museum with modern style exhibits which would particularly suit children, who unfortunately on my visit were not very well controlled. There could have been slightly better traditional descriptions on some exhibits and the main Hadrian's wall exhibition could have been a little more logically described in places. An excellent place to go however in the rain if you can find it north of the main city centre.