Birkenhead Priory & St Mary's Tower
The oldest standing building on Merseyside, a twelfth century monastery hemmed in by the Cammell Laird shipyard. Ruined cloisters, a chapter house, and a tower you can climb for a view over the yard.
North West England
Museums & science in the North West
Hands-on museums and science centres. Several of the best ones are free.
121 places45 free
This is where the North West quietly beats most of the country, and a good share of it costs nothing.
The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, the World Museum and the Museum of Liverpool, Manchester Museum and the Imperial War Museum North all charge nothing to get in, and not one of them is a consolation prize. Runway Visitor Park at the airport lets children walk onto Concorde. World of Glass at St Helens is free to get into as well, with its glassblowing demonstration the one paid extra. Quarry Bank at Styal is a working mill with the machinery actually running, which is louder and a great deal better than it sounds written down. Nearly everything in this category is indoors, so this is the list to open when the forecast has already ruined whatever you had planned.
Parks & outdoorsSoft play & indoor playFarms & animalsAdventure & ridesWater & swimmingMuseums & science
Every option
Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery
A proper old-fashioned free museum in the town centre: Egyptian gallery, natural history cases and paintings upstairs, all doable in an hour. Closed Sundays and Mondays, which catches people out.
Bolton Museum
A free town museum hiding one of Britain's best Egyptian collections, including a full recreation of Thutmose III's tomb, plus an aquarium in the basement. Genuinely free, genuinely good.
Carlisle Cathedral
Free, in the middle of Carlisle, with a cafe in the footprint of the medieval cloister. Not a day out on its own, but a good half hour between Tullie and the castle, and in December the building fills with a Christmas tree festival.
Chester Cathedral
Nearly a thousand years of history in the middle of Chester, free to walk into for most of the year and dry when the Walls are not. The tower tour costs extra, and its age rules only show up in the booking system.
Gallery Oldham
Oldham's free museum and gallery, now with Our Beautiful Oldham, a hands-on nature gallery built with local early years families. Two minutes from the tram, closed Sundays, Mondays and bank holidays.
Grosvenor Museum
Chester's Roman story done properly: real tombstones from the fortress walls, a hands-on natural history gallery, and a walk-through period house at the back. Free, central, and the right size.
Hat Works Museum
The UK's only museum of hats and hatting, back open after a four-year refurbishment. The galleries are free and you can try hats on; the Victorian factory floor is an £8.50 guided tour on selected dates. An hour well spent, not a full day.
Imperial War Museum North
War told through people's stories in a building designed to feel like a shattered globe. The hourly Big Picture Show projections fill the whole gallery and stop everyone mid-step. Heavy themes, handled well, and better for the top end of primary.
John Rylands Research Institute and Library
A neo-Gothic library from 1900 on Deansgate that looks like a cathedral built for books. Free, no booking, and a genuine wow for about 45 minutes. Open Wednesday to Saturday only.
Lady Lever Art Gallery
William Lever built it for his wife and filled it with what he liked: Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Napoleon memorabilia and one of the most significant collections of Wedgwood jasperware in the UK. Free, and the Chinese ceramics cases sit low so children can see in.
Lancashire Mining Museum
Lancashire's only surviving colliery headgear and a 3,300 horsepower steam winding engine at Astley Green, run by volunteers and free to walk round. Afternoons only, four days a week.
Liverpool Central Library
The spiral atrium is one of the most spectacular free interiors in the North West, the children's floor is genuinely brilliant, and the rooftop terrace looks across the city. Rainy-day Liverpool's best-kept non-secret, next door to World Museum.
Lytham Windmill
The white windmill on Lytham Green is free to go inside, four floors of milling and local history run by volunteers. Twenty minutes well spent, and the green outside is the actual day.
Manchester Art Gallery
Free, right in the city centre, and properly set up for children: the Lion's Den family gallery has its own play space and the family activity programme costs nothing. Closed Mondays.
Manchester Central Library
The big library on St Peter's Square has a jungle-themed children's library, refurbished in 2021, with board books to older fiction, a nursing room and a cafe in the building. Free, and open until 8pm Monday to Thursday.
Manchester Museum
A T. rex skeleton cast, live frogs in the vivarium, Egyptian mummies and a genuinely good natural history floor. Free, university-run, and less overwhelming than the big London equivalents.
Museum of Liverpool
The city's story with an overhead railway carriage to climb aboard and Little Liverpool, a dedicated hands-on gallery for under-6s. Free, on the waterfront, and the window views are half the fun.
Nantwich Museum
A small, free, volunteer-run museum in Nantwich's old Victorian library covering salt, shoes and the Civil War. An hour at most, best paired with the riverside, and the half-term craft days are the time to make a special trip.
Ordsall Hall
A Grade I listed Tudor manor house marooned among Salford's new-builds, free to walk round, with a proper Great Hall, gardens and school-holiday craft sessions. Closed Fridays and Saturdays, which catches people out.
People's History Museum
The national museum of democracy, on the corner of Left Bank and Bridge Street, with galleries of protest banners, badges and votes-for-women history plus free drop-in family activities that change with the season. Free, and closed on Tuesdays.
Portland Basin Museum
Tameside's free canal-side museum, with a walk-through 1920s street and a play zone for under fives. Closed Mondays, open bank holidays.
Prescot Museum
Knowsley's free local history museum, upstairs in Prescot Shopping Centre next to the library: watchmaking, pottery and coal mining, plus a kids corner with quiz sheets, trails and an apothecary chest to rummage in.
Runway Visitor Park
Watch jets take off close enough to feel them, with Concorde parked by the fence. Free in, pay for parking, and there is a play area and cafe for the wait between planes.
Salford Museum & Art Gallery
Free, small and genuinely good: Lark Hill Place, a full Victorian street rebuilt indoors, is the bit the kids will remember. Peel Park is right outside for the run-around afterwards.
Samlesbury Hall
A half-timbered manor house from 1325 between Preston and Blackburn, with three floors of rooms, lawns, the Mayflower Playground and an eatery. Entry is by voluntary donation, but it shuts on Saturdays and Mondays.
Science and Industry Museum
Working steam engines, the story of Cottonopolis, and hands-on galleries in the world's oldest surviving passenger railway station. Free, and the live demonstrations are the bit kids actually remember.
Silk Museum and Paradise Mill
A free museum of Macclesfield's silk trade in the old School of Art, with a paid add-on at Paradise Mill, where the Jacquard handlooms still stand where the weavers left them. Children get a Victorian millworker trail in the mill.
Smithills Hall
One of the oldest manor houses in the North West, free to wander, with formal gardens on the edge of the moors and a ghost story or two. Down the same lane as Smithills Open Farm, which makes it the obvious add-on.
Storyhouse and Chester Library
Chester's arts centre has the city library inside it, with a children's corner called The Den, free crafts every weekend afternoon, free Rhymetime twice a week and £4 family films on weekend mornings. The best free roof in the city centre.
Sudley House
A Victorian merchant's house in Mossley Hill with Turners on the walls and, upstairs, a childhood room of old toys and a small world room. Free, quiet and an hour well spent on a grey afternoon.
The Atkinson
Southport's museum, art galleries, library, theatre and cafe in one building on Lord Street, three minutes from the station and free to walk into. The Egyptian collection wins. Closed Sundays and bank holidays.
The Dock Museum
Built over a Victorian graving dock, with collections running from Vikings and Romans to the shipbuilding that made Barrow. Free entry, free parking, and an adventure playground outside.
The Harris
Preston's museum, gallery and library reopened in September 2025 after a £19m rebuild, and it is still free. A proper children's library, changing exhibitions and a cafe under one Grade I listed roof on the Flag Market.
The Lowry
Free galleries holding the world's largest LS Lowry collection, a free immersive 360 room, and theatres with a steady run of family shows. One of the easiest rainy-day wins on the Quays.
The Whitaker
Rawtenstall's free museum and art gallery, with an early years studio and a busy programme of family days, films and makes. MANR, the restaurant on site, feeds you afterwards.
The Whitworth
A free gallery on the edge of Whitworth Park, with a cafe among the trees and a surprisingly full calendar of free under-fives days, baby sessions and outdoor art clubs. Closed Mondays.
Victoria Gallery & Museum
The University of Liverpool's own gallery and museum, five minutes uphill from Lime Street, free and small enough to do properly in an hour. Open Tuesday to Saturday, going to six days a week from 5 October 2026.
Walker Art Gallery
Free, grand, and far better with small children than a fine-art gallery has any right to be, thanks to Big Art for Little Artists, a whole gallery where they are supposed to touch things.
Warrington Museum & Art Gallery
Free, and a proper old municipal collection of more than 200,000 objects off Bold Street, heavy on archaeology and natural science. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
Waterside Arts
Sale's arts centre, opposite Sale Metrolink stop, with free exhibitions, a cafe bar and a steady run of family theatre, including a Christmas musical this December.
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum
Birkenhead's big 1920s civic gallery on Slatey Road: free at the door, no ticket, no booking, all on one level, with a free car park and a cafe. It shuts on Sundays.
Williamson's Tunnels, Paddington
Volunteer-led tours of a four storey underground chamber in Edge Hill, dug back out by the people showing you round. Free, booked by email, Wednesdays and Sundays only, and best for children old enough to listen for an hour and a half.
World Museum, Liverpool
Five floors, free, and it covers three things small children reliably love: giant dinosaurs, an aquarium and a space gallery. The best wet-weather day within half an hour.
World of Glass
Free to get in and better than it sounds: hands-on stations on glass, lenses and fibre optics, a Victorian street and the old Tank House, with live glassblowing around midday and 2pm for a small extra charge. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
Anson Engine Museum
Go on a steam day. The rest of the time this volunteer run collection of gas and oil engines, one of the largest in the country, sits still on the site of the old Anson Colliery in Poynton.
Avro Heritage Museum
Aviation museum on the old Woodford aerodrome, home to the only all-white Vulcan bomber, with cockpit tours and a free flight simulator. Under-11s go free, and it opens Friday to Sunday only.
British Commercial Vehicle Museum
A big hall of British lorries, buses and fire engines in the town that built Leylands, with a lorry driving experience for kids and a cafe for the grown-ups. Gift Aid your ticket and it becomes a 12-month pass for nothing extra.
British Lawnmower Museum
Over 250 lawnmowers above a working mower shop on Shakespeare Street, collected by a former lawnmower racing champion. The bit children remember is Lawnmowers of the Rich and Famous.
Bury Transport Museum
A restored 1848 railway goods warehouse full of cars, buses, trucks and trains, just across the road from the East Lancashire Railway's Bolton Street station. Open whenever the railway's trains run, and free with a Day Rover.
Cheshire Military Museum
Chester Castle still has a museum in it: three hundred years of Cheshire soldiering, a First World War trench you walk through, a barracks room and a decent amount you are allowed to pick up.
Derwent Pencil Museum
Keswick made the world's first pencils and the museum sits on the works. About an hour indoors: secret wartime pencils with maps hidden inside, and a coloured pencil close to eight metres long.
Deva Roman Experience
Chester's Jorvik-style walkthrough of its Roman fortress: costumed legionaries, reconstructed streets and deliberately bad smells, tucked off Bridge Street. Open to the public at weekends; check the booking page for school holiday dates.
Fleetwood Museum
Fleetwood's maritime museum on Queen's Terrace: the town's fishing story told for £4, with accompanied children free and Lancashire crumpets in the coffee house. Small and seasonal, so treat it as the indoor hour of a Fleetwood day, not the day itself.
Furness Abbey
The ruins of what was England's second richest Cistercian abbey, in a wooded valley on the edge of Barrow, with a small exhibition of knights' effigies and a build-your-own-city trail for children. Book by the night before and it is 15% cheaper.
Hawkshead Grammar School Museum
Wordsworth's school, kept as a schoolroom with the original furniture and the desk with his name carved into it. Children get an hour of dressing up, quill writing and scavenger hunts, with 1,800 books in the library upstairs.
Hooton Park Hangars
Three of the oldest surviving First World War hangars in the country, holding historic aircraft, vehicles, engines, a Chester tram, a printing museum and cockpits to sit in. Volunteer run, and open on set days only.
Judges' Lodgings Museum
A 17th-century townhouse below the castle with a Museum of Childhood on the top floor: 200 years of toys, a Victorian schoolroom and nurseries. Free for children, adults £5, and open Thursday to Sunday until mid November.
Keswick Museum
Keswick's own museum in Fitz Park: galleries on the rocks, history and people of the area, plus a hands-on digital gallery where children play a video game version of the Lake District. Under 5s are free and every ticket covers a year of return visits.
Lancaster Castle
Guided tours only, an hour to an hour and a quarter, through a castle whose history is mostly crime and punishment, witch trials included. Brilliant for a gruesome-minded eight-year-old, wrong for a toddler in a buggy.
Lancaster City Museum
The city's own museum in the Georgian building on Market Square, with the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum inside. Children are always free, and so are adults who live in the district.
Lancaster Maritime Museum
Lancaster's port history in the old Custom House on the quay, with a grab-and-go cafe and a dog-friendly boatyard outside. Afternoons only, four days a week, and free for children.
Laurel & Hardy Museum
Stan Laurel was born in Ulverston, and the town's museum now fills the old Roxy cinema with memorabilia and the films themselves on the big screen. Cheap, dry, and funnier for children than you might expect.
Lion Salt Works
The last open-pan salt works in Britain, kept exactly as the salt men left it, with interactive galleries that explain why Cheshire is full of holes. Genuinely interesting, free for children, and a few minutes from Marbury for a run afterwards.
Museum of Transport, Greater Manchester
A 1930s bus garage in Cheetham packed with around 70 historic buses, run by volunteers who know every rivet. Under 16s go free with an adult, so a family visit costs one or two £7.50 tickets. Only open Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays.
North West Museum of Road Transport
A volunteer-run museum of old buses, fire engines, cars and motorbikes in St Helens' 1881 tram depot. Weekends only, adults £7.50 and up to four accompanied children free, which makes it one of the cheaper rainy Saturdays in the borough.
Port Sunlight Museum
The story of the village Lever built for his soap workers, with a preserved worker's cottage on the same ticket and a £2 miniature-hunting trail for the children. The village outside, the prettiest streets on Merseyside, costs nothing. A gentle history stop, not a rides day, and priced like it knows that.
Queen Street Mill Textile Museum
A Victorian weaving shed still holding 308 Lancashire looms, with the mill's own steam engine, Peace, and demonstrations of cotton becoming cloth. Children free, and the season ends on 31 October.
Senhouse Roman Museum
Clifftop museum beside Maryport's Roman fort, holding Britain's largest group of Roman military altar stones. Wednesday finds handling and fort tours on Thursdays and Sundays make it work for children. Free parking.
Showtown
Blackpool built a museum about being Blackpool, on Bank Hey Street next to the Tower: the circus, the magicians, the illuminations. The galleries are interactive instead of glass case. Allow an hour and a half.
Sick to Death
A hands-on and gleefully gross history of medicine inside a listed church on Chester's Rows: a plague alley, an autopsy you can try and a time-travelling toilet. Kids £5, card only, about an hour.
Solway Aviation Museum
A genuine Avro Vulcan and a line of Cold War aircraft parked on the apron at Carlisle Airport, with volunteers who open them up and let children climb inside. The Vulcan shuts for the November Sunday openings; the Canberra, Sea Prince and Trident stay open.
Staircase House
Stockport's oldest town house, done out as a hands-on walk from the 15th century to the 20th and named after a rare Jacobean cage newel staircase. An hour does it.
Stockport Air Raid Shelters
A labyrinth of tunnels carved under the town centre that sheltered thousands in the Blitz, explored with a self-guided audio tour. Atmospheric in the best way for 7-and-ups.
The Beacon Museum
Four floors of galleries on Whitehaven harbourside covering the town's mining, shipping and rum-running past, with a bakery cafe attached. Exhibitions change, so a second visit is not a repeat.
The Fusilier Museum
A family ticket is £9.95 and works as an annual pass, so the second visit costs nothing. Two galleries of uniforms, medals and soldiers' diaries in the middle of Bury, plus a shooting simulator.
The Puzzling Place
An anti-gravity room where water appears to run uphill, a hologram gallery and a room that shrinks the grown-ups. Cheap, indoor, and exactly the right length for the age group.
The Ruskin Museum
Coniston's village museum, home to Donald Campbell's restored Bluebird K7 hydroplane alongside copper mines, Swallows and Amazons and John Ruskin. A rainy-day hour built round one properly jaw-dropping exhibit.
Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum
A long-running quarry museum three miles from Keswick, with a narrow gauge railway ride into the quarry included in the ticket, mineral panning and a yard full of old diggers. Excellent for any child who stops for roadworks.
Tullie
Carlisle's museum, plain Tullie since the rebrand, mid-transformation and all the better for it: under-18s go free, the adult ticket is £8.50, and £16 buys an annual pass. New galleries opened in 2025, though some of the old favourites are shut for the next phase.
Weaver Hall Museum and Workhouse
Northwich's old Union Workhouse on London Road, now the museum of West Cheshire's history and the salt that built the town. Under-16s free, adults £4.30, fully accessible, and the car park is large and free.
Anfield Stadium Tour and LFC Museum
The self-guided tour takes you through the home dressing room, down the tunnel past the This Is Anfield sign and out pitchside, with the club museum included. For a football-mad child it is a pilgrimage. For anyone else it is £77 for a family walk round a stadium.
Carlisle Castle
A working border fortress for 900 years, not a fairytale castle: a squat red keep full of prisoners' carvings, ramparts to walk and a military museum inside the walls. English Heritage, so members go free and everyone else should book online for the discount.
Catalyst Science Centre
Hands-on science galleries and a glass rooftop observatory over the Mersey. Small, indoors and close, with one gallery shut for a rebuild until early 2027.
Eureka! Science + Discovery
A hands-on science centre built precisely for this age group - walk-through lungs and a supersize brain in the new Bodies gallery, inventions to test, and the ferry stop is literally outside. Entry converts to an annual pass, which changes the maths entirely.
Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker
A real Cold War government bunker in the Cheshire fields south of Nantwich, with most of the kit still in the rooms it was used in. There is a NAAFI canteen, a cinema and a Soviet Spy Mouse Trail. Every ticket is an annual pass.
Hill Top
Beatrix Potter's tiny farmhouse, kept exactly as she left it, with the garden where Tom Kitten and Jemima Puddle-Duck were dreamt up. Magical for a book-loving seven-year-old, over in an hour, and you must book a timed slot in advance.
Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre
The Lovell Telescope is one of the largest steerable radio telescopes on Earth and it silences children on arrival. The First Light Pavilion and its Space Dome do the explaining; the arboretum and the playground do the running about. Open Tuesday to Sunday.
Lakeland Motor Museum
Thousands of vehicles and period pieces packed into a riverside mill, with the Campbell Bluebird story told properly in its own gallery. One for kids who like machines; a surprisingly good wet-weather card.
Little Moreton Hall
The wonky moated Tudor house on the A34 south of Congleton, all leaning timber and floors that tilt. Free spotter trails keep children hunting while you look, but it is pricey without National Trust membership.
Madame Tussauds Blackpool
Over 75 wax figures across 14 zones, and the Blackpool version leans pop culture rather than politics, so kids actually recognise people. Book online or you pay extra for the privilege of queueing.
Manchester United Museum & Stadium Tour
The full Old Trafford works: three floors of museum, then the players' tunnel, the dressing room and the dugouts on a 70 minute guided tour. Plan around the fixture list, because it all shuts on home match days.
Museum of Illusions Manchester
More than 60 hands-on illusions on Market Street, from the Infinity Room to the Cloning Table, made for daft photos. £25.50 an adult and £21.50 a child, under 5s free, and prams are not allowed in.
National Football Museum
Shirts, trophies and match footage across four gallery floors, with a penalty shootout and skills games that football-mad kids refuse to leave. If yours do not care about football, skip it: it is exactly what it says.
National Waterways Museum
A real working dock kept as a museum: historic narrowboats, locks, indoor galleries, boat trips and a waterways playground. Under 6s free, and the annual pass costs less than two visits.
Norton Priory
The most excavated monastic site in Europe, with a 12th century undercroft, a twice life-size statue of St Christopher and a Georgian walled garden open in the summer season. Close, quietly excellent, and children aged 4 to 16 go free with a paying adult.
Quarry Bank Mill
A working cotton mill where the looms still clatter and the Apprentice House tells the children's side of the industrial revolution straight. A new Play Hub inside the mill and river walks outside round it off.
The Beatles Story
Wall-to-wall Beatles under the Albert Dock, with an audio guide narrated by John Lennon's sister and a hands-on Discovery Zone at weekends. Brilliant if your kids know the songs, a long ninety minutes if they don't.
The World of Beatrix Potter
Peter Rabbit's world recreated in walk-through scenes, ending in the garden with Mr McGregor's vegetables. Squarely for the under-8s; it is small, sweet and unashamed of it.
Western Approaches
A hundred rooms of reinforced concrete under Exchange Flags, where the Battle of the Atlantic was run, left largely as it was. Children under 16 cost £1. Two floors of staircases, no lift, no pushchairs.
Windermere Jetty Museum
Lakeland Arts keeps Windermere's historic boats floating under cover in a wet dock on the Bowness lakeshore, so children see them in water and not propped on stands.
Aviva Studios (Factory International)
Manchester's huge arts venue on Water Street does free craft drop-ins in the half terms and a big family draw at Christmas, this year a life-size dinosaur Lightroom show. Free to walk into, with food and drink inside.
Blackburn Empire Theatre
A 1910 theatre run by volunteers as a charity, with a proper family panto at Christmas at friendly prices. Outside panto season the family offer is a couple of touring shows a year, so this is mainly a Christmas venue.
Crewe Heritage Centre
Full-size locomotives including the record breaking APT tilting train, miniature railway rides, model layouts and a viewing platform right over the West Coast Main Line. Kids go free for the whole 2026 season.
Floral Pavilion
New Brighton's seafront theatre, with a cafe open to anyone every day, a traditional panto and a scattering of family shows and holiday clubs through the year. Pairs well with a blowy walk on the prom.
King George's Hall
Blackburn's town-centre concert hall. For families it is mainly the Christmas show, The Wizard of Oz this year, plus the odd touring family show; the smaller sister venue in Darwen does more for children.
Lancaster Grand Theatre
A theatre that has been going since 1782, now a charity and home to the Lancaster Footlights companies. The Christmas panto is £49 for a family of four, and touring picture-book shows fill in the rest of the year.
Liverpool Everyman
The Hope Street theatre with the rock 'n' roll panto also runs Saturday music mornings for under-fives in its cafe from September to July. The picture-book shows happen at its sister theatre, the Playhouse, across town.
Liverpool Playhouse
The Victorian theatre on Williamson Square is where the Everyman and Playhouse put their picture-book shows: Sir Charlie Stinky Socks at the end of October, then The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Pip and Posy and Zog in spring 2027. Hour-long shows, the right length for a first theatre trip.
Lyceum Theatre
Crewe's town-centre theatre, with a Christmas panto and a proper list of touring children's shows, from Dear Zoo Live for toddlers to Horrible Histories.
Merseyside Maritime Museum
Closed. The Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum next door are shut for essential maintenance ahead of a major redevelopment that National Museums Liverpool says is subject to funding, and no reopening date is published. The Albert Dock around them is still worth the walk, and the city's other national museums are free and open.
Octagon Theatre
Bolton's theatre runs free Saturday-morning storytelling sessions for 3 to 7s through the autumn and a reimagined Cinderella at Christmas with cheaper kids' tickets. Book the free sessions, they are limited.
Opera House Manchester
Manchester's big touring house, which first opened on Boxing Day 1912. Families get the city-centre panto plus a string of big-name children's shows in the half terms, from The Dinosaur That Pooped to Horrible Histories.
Parr Hall
Warrington's town-centre hall runs a panto that starts after Christmas, just as most others are winding down, plus a handful of Sunday-afternoon children's shows through the year.
Quirky Quarter
An indoor illusion attraction on Duke Street, all on one level: upside-down rooms, mirror mazes, puzzles and photo illusions. Families usually spend about an hour. Open daily 10am to 5pm with timed entry.
Shakespeare North Playhouse
Prescot's playhouse has a proper family strand: weekly Baby Bards, short shows for the under-fives, half-term drama workshops for older kids and a performance garden outside. Better than it has any right to be for a town this size.
Stockport Plaza
A restored 1932 Art Deco cinema and variety theatre with its own cinema organ and Art Deco tea rooms. Families come for two pantos a year and the Christmas extras rather than a regular programme.
The Dukes
Lancaster's theatre and cinema in one building, with a Christmas show in the round, the odd family show through the autumn and year-round youth theatre. The cafe bar sells Mrs Dowson's ice cream, which helps.
The Grand Theatre, Blackpool
Blackpool's big Church Street theatre runs a proper year-round family programme: a summer youth musical, storybook shows, magic, and a giant Christmas panto with a relaxed performance.
Theatre by the Lake
Keswick's theatre sits by the lake and runs short family shows in the school holidays, with a lakeside cafe open from 9.30am. The rainy-day answer in the northern Lakes.
Z-arts
The UK's only arts centre run entirely for children, in Hulme. Come for a booked show or an Adventures in Wonderland session rather than a wander: this is a plan-ahead venue, and a very good one.