Free Museums and Galleries deals page discussion / Report top spots

Bushy3

Further to my post last year:

"If you have young children, live in or near, or are visiting, KENT please search Wheels of Time Kent on your usual search engine or at Visit Kent

Children aged 5-11 receive a different badge at each of the fifty-six museums and heritage sites in the Scheme, visit two and they will be given a lanyard to keep their badges on and they can earn personalised award badges by visiting 10, 20, 30, 40 or all 56 sites.

Participation in the Scheme and all badges and lanyards are free.

Wheels of Time, Kent now has 57 museums and heritage sites many free to enter. Also a scheme has started in Essex; the pilot scheme in Dorset is expected to restart in an expanded form shortly and a scheme in Surrey before the school summer holidays.

CairnleyMckenna

There's also Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, based in Lancashire! 

As one of the first purpose built free museums to open outside of London in 1874, Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery houses a rich and fascinating collection covering fine art, decorative art, Egyptology, coins, manuscripts, natural history, social history and South Asia.

With over 1000 Japanese prints, 5000 examples of coins and money, 500 books and manuscripts and largest icon collection outside London, you certainly won’t be short of things to see!

dancingmaster1651

Do add Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead --  a gem, small antiques collections plus one ever-changing modern gallery, enough to fill a happy hour or two (plus ice-cream) without exhausting young feet and eyes. 

Er. Your opening paragraph says this facility is regularly updated, but latest post is 2022 (and many contributions are labelled 2010!). Well, if you update it every two years I suppose that IS regular . . . 

ACBM

Hi there. Dunfermline is Scotland's newest city and has the unusual position of having every cultural venue free admission. There is Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Dunfermline Abbey Nave and Palace, the Abbey Church, Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries and Fire Station Creative. 

Slickas

Foursticks Gallery in Falkland, Fife. Great wee independent gallery supporting local art & crafts. Free all year round!  Opposite Falkland palace & on the high street with other independent gift shops & eateries so ideally located for a visit. Great exploring round Falkland Estate. A must for fans of Outlander!

pennywithers

Penwith Gallery in St Ives, Cornwall. Free entry, dog friendly, open Monday to Saturday 10am-5pm.

Penwith Gallery is the home of the Penwith Society of Arts. The art gallery, formerly a pilchard packing factory, has a remarkable complex of buildings, including three public galleries, Porthmeor Printmakers Workshop, ten artists’ studios, a sculpture courtyard, shop and archive. This allows for an exciting programme of both contemporary and historical exhibitions year round.

The Society was founded in 1949 by Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon, Bernard Leach, Sven Berlin and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, amongst others. Later members have included Patrick Heron, Terry Frost and Henry Moore (honorary member). This association with so many progressive and influential artists has given the Penwith Society a unique place in British art history.

Today the Society continues to play a central role in the thriving and vibrant St. Ives art community, exhibiting contemporary art from Cornwall and beyond.

sillyvixen

If your in Cornwall with a model railway enthusiast try Moseley Museum Redruth. They have many model layouts of different sorts and ages, as well as a vast number of model trains and rolling stock. You can take a ride behind a real ex mining train (they have uncovered seated 'man movers' used for transporting tin miners to the area they were working on) but we used a purpose built covered coach due to the rain, track is rough and it's not the smoothest ride - but that all adds to the fun. They have a large collection of vintage maccano models and other toy. It's not your most polished museum and very rough and ready but free. We took my Dad there last week when we were on holiday - he is in his 80's and been into railway modeling since the age of 6 (he was also involved with preserved railways since the 60's even fireing and driving narrow gauge steam trains for many years but is no longer able to). We spend a week in Cornwall with him every year, and for the last few years have been looking for activities he is interested in, most things we come up with he isn't interested in and chooses to stay in our holiday home and please himself. This place he was like a kid in a sweet shop it was lovely to see - we spent 3 hours there and were invited into the workshop to see the work going on.

They only open 4 afternoons a week, and the only leaflets we have ever seen were onsite. You can find them by googling 'Moseley museum Redruth'. It's a bit of a special interest place, but if thats your interest and you are in Cornwall this place is worth a try.

martindow

tinasparkleRDG said:

In Reading we have The Museum of English Rural Life 
The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology 
The Cole Museum of Zoology 
And the small but perfectly formed Riverside Museum at Blakes Lock

They are all free.

And also the main museum in the town centre, also free, with Roman items from Silchester, a facsimile of the Bayeux tapestry and local history items.

https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/

I think there is also a museum in the Royal Berks.  I've never been as it always had very intermittent opening hours and maybe it no longer exists.

museums_books_tea

Bethlem Museum of the Mind in Beckenham is totally free! It's set in the grounds of Bethlem Royal Hospital (which themselves are beautiful and free to walk around).  It has it's own bus stop on the Superloop SL5 route and is only a short train journey from London Bridge or Victoria
I am too new to post links but you can google it!

Murphybear

This is really wonderful  .  Nothing to add but an observation.  We are so lucky in the U.K. to have many museums, interesting local ones annd the great world class ones especially as many are free.  

I used to wander round the Science Museum and the British Museum when I was at University in London many years ago.  I spent hours in the Science Museum, it was close to my College where I was doing a Science degree.  My favourite memory was seeing the Tutankhamen Exhibition.  It was fascinating, the only drawback was the queues.