MUSEUMS  around the UK on the Web

Alien Nation Museum www.alien-nation.co.uk
Birmingham and Midland www.solnet.co.uk/bammot
Bolton www.boltonmuseums.org.uk
Bygones Victorian www.bygones.co.uk
Cabaret Mechanical Theatre www.cabaret.co.uk
Devon www.devonmuseums.net
Dover www.doveruk.com/museum
Exhibitions Net www.exhibitionsnet.com
Haig Colliery Mining www.haigpit.com
HMS Warrior www.hmswarrior.org
Hull www.hullcc.gov.uk/museums
Hunterian www.gla.ac.uk/museum
Imperial War www.iwm.org.uk
Ironbridge Gorge www.ironbridge.org.uk
Lancaster Recovery Group www.lrg.org.uk
London Canal www.canalmuseum.org.uk
Merseyside www.nmgm.org.uk
Museum Documentation Assoc www.open.gov.uk/mdocassn
Museum of Army Flying www.flying-museum.org.uk
Museum of British Road Transport www.mbrt.co.uk
Museum of Costume www.museumofcostume.co.uk
Museum of History of Science www.mhs.oxac.uk
Museum of London www.museum-london.org.uk
Museum of Science and Industry www.msim.org.uk
National Maritime www.nmmm.ac.uk
National Museum of Photography, Film & TV www.nmsi.ac.uk/nmpft
National Railway www.nmsi.ac.uk/nrm
North Weald Airfield http://fly.to/northweald
The Philpot www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk
Reading www.readingmuseum.org
River and Rowing www.rrm.co.uk
Royal Armouries www.armouries.org.uk
Royal Navy Submarine www.rnsubmus.co.uk
Spitfire and Hurricane www.spitfire-museum.com

Bedfordshire

  • Bedford - Bedford Museum. Local archaeology, social history, biology and geology.

Berkshire

Buckinghamshire

  • Chalfont St Giles - Chiltern Open Air Museum. Re-erected agricultural and other buildings.

  • High Wycombe - Wycombe Museum. Local history, especially the furniture industry, with a renowned collection of Windsor chairs. The grounds also house the British Regional Furniture Study Centre.
  •  
  • Milton Keynes - Bletchley Park Trust. "Britain's Best Kept Secret" where codes were broken during World War II. See also the Academic Bletchley Park site what you can see and do including the German Enigma Cipher machine, the Lorenz Cipher machine and the rebuild of Colossus (with photographs).
  • Olney - The Cowper and Newton Museum. Presents Olney's heritage.
  • Waddesdon - Waddesdon Manor. French Renaissance-style château was built at the end of the last century for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild to display his vast collection of 18th Century art treasure.

Cambridgeshire

Cambridge -

Channel Islands

  • Guernsey - Guernsey Museums and Galleries.
    [Responsible for: St Peter Port - Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery, Castle Cornet; St Peter's - Fort Grey]
  • Jersey -   Jersey Heritage Trust, Channel Islands. Collections relating to local history, archaeology, art, and natural science.
    [Responsible for: The Jersey Museum, Hamptonne Country Life Museum, La Houge Bie, Mont Orgueil Castle, Elizabeth Castle, The Occupation Tapestry Gallery, The Maritime Museum, and the Jersey Archive]

Cheshire

  • Ellesmere Port - Boat Museum. One of the world's largest floating collection of traditional canal craft.
  • Marston, Northwich - The Lion Salt Works.
  • Styal - Quarry Bank Mill. A leading museum of the Industrial Revolution and a working cotton mill set in the original buildings dating back to 1784.
  • Widnes - Catalyst. The only museum in Europe solely devoted to the chemical insudtry.

Cornwall

Cumbria

  • Coniston - Brantwood. The home of the, 19th century, poet, artist and critic - John Ruskin.
  • Grasmere - The Wordsworth Museum (Dove Cottage). Maintained by the Wordsworth Trust.
  • Kendal -
    •   Abbot Hall Art Gallery. Based in a Georgian villa, with important collections 18th, 19th and 20th century art. The gallery also has an innovative programme of educational activities, lectures and events.
    • Kendal Museum. One of the country's oldest museums - founded in 1796. Its collections include local archaeology, history, geology, and natural science from around the world.
  • Keswick - Cars of the Stars Museum. Vehicles used in films and television, including a James Bond collection, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Batmobile, and a Back to the Future Delorean
  • Ulverston - Ulverston Heritage Centre. Local history museum.
  • Whitehaven - Haig Colliery Mining Museum. A restored deep coal mine, with two huge steam winding engines.
  • Windermere - Windermere Steamboat Museum.

Derbyshire

Devon

Dorset

Durham

East Sussex

  • Hove - The Regency Town House. Museum and Heritage Centre covering British life between the 1780s and 1850s, especially the history of the Brighton area.
  • Newhaven - Newhaven Local and Maritime Museum. Many thousands of photographs of local historical interest together with artefacts recovered from the areas of local shipwrecks
  • Seaford - Seaford Local History. Housed in a Napoleonic Martello tower.

East Yorkshire

Essex

  • Mistley - Essex Secret Bunker. The former Essex County nuclear war headquarters.
  • Stansted -
    • Hill Toy Museum. The largest privately owned toy museum in Europe, with over 30,000 individual items.
    • Montfitchet Castle. Recreation of a Norman castle on the original site.

Gloucestershire

Greater Manchester

Hampshire

  • * Hampshire County Council Museums Service. Includes an on-line catalogue with searching and browsing facilities, as well as a museums directory.
    [Responsible for: Aldershot Military Museum; Allen Gallery, Alton; Andover Museum; Bursledon Windmill; Curtis Museum, Alton; Eastleigh Museum; Flora Twort Gallery, Petersfield; Gosport Museum; Hampshire Farm Museum; Havant Museum; Museum of the Iron Age; Red House Museum, Christchurch; Rockbourne Roman Villa, Fordingbridge, St Agatha's Church; St Barbe Museum, Lymington; Treadgolds of Portsea; Westbury Manor Museum, Fareham; Willis Museum, Basingstoke; Whitchurch Silk Mill]
  • Beaulieu - * National Motor Museum.
  • Chawton - Jane Austen's House. Where the early 19th century novelist lived and worked.
  • Fareham - Royal Armouries - Fort Nelson. Military life in the mid-19th century, and artillery. Other museums at: Leeds, West Yorkshire; and in the Tower of London
  • Gosport - Royal Navy Submarine Museum. Military museum featuring the Submarine Service, includes a real submarine
  • Petersfield (near) - Butser Ancient Farm. A replica of the sort of farm which would have existed in the British Iron Age circa 300 BC. Also a large open air laboratory where research into the Iron Age and Roman periods goes on using the methods and materials which were available at that time.
  • Portsmouth -
    • Flagship Portsmouth at the Historic Dockyard, Hampshire. Includes: Mary Rose (Tudor warship); HMS Victory (Nelson's flagship); HMS Warrior (1860 ironclad warship); Royal Naval Museum; and Dockyard Apprentice (hands-on exhibition about building a warship).
    • * Mary Rose Maritime Museum. Only 16th century warship on display in the world, from the time of King Henry VIII. Includes a museum tour.
    • Past Impressions On-line Museum. On-line cultural exhibitions and gallery space.
    • Royal Naval Museum. Military museum, with collections of manuscripts, artefacts, photographs, oral history, sound recordings, paintings and prints relating to the history of the Royal Navy.
  • Southampton - * Southampton City Cultural Services, Hampshire. Nationally important archaeology collections, and information about RMS Titanic.
    [Responsible for: Tudor House Musem, Southamption Maritime Museum, Museum of Archaeology, and Southampton City Art Gallery]
  • Lymington - St Barbe Museum. Local history and arts museum.

Hertfordshire

Kent

Lancashire

  • Lancashire Museums.
    [Responsible for: The Museum of Lancashire, Preston; Fleetwood Museum; Lodgings Lancaster, Helmshore Textile Museeums, Rossendale; Queen Street Mill, Burnley; Gawthorpe Hall; Turton Tower, Bolton; Clitheroe Castle Museum; Ribchester Roman Bath Museum; Museum Service to Schools]
  • Bolton - Bolton Museum, Art Gallery and Aquarium, Lancashire. Houses collections which cover Egyptian Antiquities, British Art from 18th - 20th Century, zoology, botany, geology collections and an activity centre for school parties and children, as well as an aquarium.
    [Responsible for: Smithills Hall, and Hall i'th'Wood]
  • Lancaster - Peter Scott Gallery, University of Lancaster. Temporary art exhibitions, and permanent displays of fine arts, contemporary ceramics and Royal Lancastrian Pottery.
  • Wigan - Wigan Pier. Local history presentations and Mill & Engine House.

Leicestershire

  • Leicester - * Leicester City Museums. Museums with collections of Egyptology; natural history (including dinosaurs); fine art; paintings; sculpture; pre-historic, Roman and medieval artefacts and costume
    [Responsible for: New Walk Museum; Jewry Wall Museum; Newarke Houses Museum; The Guildhall; Abbey Pumping Station; Belgrave Hall and Gardens; Wygston's House; The Great Hall of Leiceter Castle; The Magazine]
  • Loughborough - Carillon (49 Bells) War Memorial and Military Museum.

London

Merseyside

  • * National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool.
    [Responsible for: The Conservation Centre; Liverpool Museum; Merseyside Maritime Museum; Anything to Declare? (HM Customs & Excise National Museum); Museum of Liverpool Life; Walker Art Gallery; Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight; Sudley House].
  • Liverpool -
  • St.Helens -
    • St.Helens Transport Museum, Merseyside. Transport museum with an unrivalled collection of historic buses, coaches, trams, cars and lorries
    • The World of Glass, St.Helens, Merseyside. Celebrates the past, present and future of glass and the glass industry. (Opening Spring 2000).
  • Southport -

Norfolk

North Yorkshire

Northamptonshire

Northern Ireland

Nottinghamshire

  • Nottingham -
    • Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre.
    • Green's Mill. 19th century tower windmill in Sneinton, once owned and operated by George Green (1793-1841), a mathematical physicist and scientist.
    • Galleries of Justice. Set in Victorian courthouse, with attached gaol (featuring real warders!), and hands-on exhibitions.

Oxfordshire

Scotland

Shropshire

  • * Shropshire County Museum Service. Collection areas: agriculture, archaeology, biology, environmental, ethnographic, fine & decorative art, geology, and social history. Also has news on the education, conservation, and outreach services.
    [Responsible for: Acton Scott Historic Working Farm, Ludlow Museum, and Much Wenlock Museum]
  • Cosford - Aerospace Museum.
  • Telford - * Ironbridge Gorge Museum. Birthplace of the industrial revolution. Including a virtual tour, and the Ironbridge Institute. UNESCO has designated the valley a World Heritage Site.
    [Responsible for: The Iron Bridge & Tollhouse; Blists Hill Victorian Town; Museum of Iron & Darby Furnace; The Darby Houses; Museum of the Gorge; Coalport China Museum, Jackfield Tile Museum; Broseley Pipeworks, Clay Tobacco Pipe Museum; The Teddy Bear Shop]
  • Shrewsbury - Mythstories. Museum of myth and fable.

Somerset

South Yorkshire

Staffordshire

Suffolk

Surrey

Tyne and Wear

Wales

Warwickshire

West Midlands

West Sussex

  • Amberley - Amberley Museum. Outdoor industrial museum based in chalk pits.
  • Chichester - Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex. A unique collection of over 40 domestice and agricultural buildings dating from the 13th to the 19th century.
  • East Grinstead - Finchcocks Living Museum of Music, Hammerwood Park house. Collection of historical keyboard instruments set in a fine Georgian manor house.

West Yorkshire

Wiltshire

  • Chippenham - Fox Talbot Museum. Commemorates the life and work of William Henry Fox Talbot - known as The Father of Modern Photography.
  • Cricklade - Cricklade Museum, Wiltshire. Local history museum.
  • Salisbury - The Wardrobe. Military museum, located in the Cathedral Close. Housing the collections and archives of the Royal Berkshire, the Wiltshire and the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiments.
  • Trowbridge - Trowbridge Museum. Local history

Worcestershire

Virtual Museums and Sites

  • 24 Hour Museum. A gateway to information about UK museums. Includes an advanced museum locator, up-to-date museum and gallery news, links to educational resources and a variety of other features. The world's first ever Government-recognised national museum which only exists in cyberspace.
  • Cornucopia. A pilot website, from the Museums and Galleries Commision (MGC), providing information on the 50 museums in England with Designated collections. Designation celebrates pre-eminent museum collections outside the National museums.
  • Sainsbury's Virtual Museum. Contains a wealth of material, including photographic and documentary sources on shopping for the period 1869 to 1900. It is designed to help teachers use the internet to support the teaching of the following elements of the UK History National Curriculum
  • Shakespeare and the Globe. An award-wining on-line exhibit from Renaissance Text Centre, and the Department of English, University of Reading. Includes information on the original and reconstructed theatre.
  • Simply Switch On!. A virtual museum of small electrical appliances.
  • Virtual Museum of Computing. A completely virtual collection of exhibits on the history of computers, etc.
  • Virtual Museum of the Iron Lung. A resource centre relating specifically to the iron lung and generally to polio, post-polio and artificial ventilation.