Manchester Museum of Science & Industry
View Map
Recommendation added: 28/02/2006 12:44
By: Elphaba (YSUK rating +20)Elphaba has been thanked 3 times for this contribution
"When I was a child we used to go about once a year to visit my grandmother in Crewe. We would stay in the north-west for about a week, and visit various towns and attractions. One year we went to Manchester and visited the Museum of Science & Industry. I remember loving all the hands-on displays, and looking at the steam engines.
Jump forward a few years, and at the age of 18 I started a university Computing Science course at UMIST (the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology - now sadly part of the University of Manchester, but it was a separate university while I was there). After a few months my mother came up for a visit, and suggested we try finding the museum again. So I looked online, found it, and off we went.
The museum is divided into 5 or 6 different buildings. One houses the steam engines (they were smaller than I remembered, but there are plenty of them!). There is also the first passenger railway station in the world, still intact and with displays about the history of the railways.
One building is about the history of Manchester, from the Romans onwards. Lots of displays and items to look at etc. Another has all the hands-on objects demonstrating scientific and industrial concepts. And one building is about the history of the textile industry in Manchester, including a working loom, that makes ribbons that are sold in the gift shop. Most of the buildings are original industrial buildings. There is also a display about networking and computers, including a section on the first programmable computer, Baby, which was developed at UMIST (as the lecturers never stopped telling us!).
This museum is probably not great for smaller children as there is a lot of reading and it is mainly static displays. But if you are interested in the history of Manchester, and the Industrial Revolution in general, then there is plenty of interesting information here.
The museum is about a 15 minute walk from Manchester city centre, in the Castlefield district. Entrance to the permanent collections is free. The website for the museum is here: http://www.msim.org.uk and it has directions and more information."
Was this recommendation useful?
|
