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.
70 places27 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 runs glassblowing demonstrations and is also free. 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.
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 a £7.50 guided tour. 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 - better for the top end of primary.
Lady Lever Art Gallery
William Lever built it for his wife and filled it with what he liked: Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Napoleon memorabilia and the finest Wedgwood jasperware collection anywhere. Free, and the Chinese ceramics cases sit low so children can see in.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
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.
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.
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, indoors and better than it sounds: interactive science aimed at younger children, glassblowing demos, a picnic area and a small playground outside.
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.
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.
Catalyst Science Centre
Hands-on science galleries and a glass rooftop observatory over the Mersey. Small, cheap, indoors and close.
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. Weekends in term time, through the week in school holidays.
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.
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.
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.
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, and next to 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.
Norton Priory
The most excavated monastic site in Europe, with a medieval undercroft, a giant statue of St Christopher and a walled garden that does apple days and bug hunts. Close, cheap and quietly excellent.
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 £2 trails to pull children round the prettiest streets on Merseyside. A gentle history stop, not a rides day, and priced like it knows that.
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.
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. Canberra, Sea Prince and Trident stay open all year.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 £72 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.
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 the new Curious Titans exhibition do the rest; the arboretum does the running about.
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, both dressing rooms and the dugouts on a 70 minute guided tour. Plan around the fixture list, because it all shuts on home match days.
National Football Museum
Shirts, trophies and match footage across six floors, with 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.
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.
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.
Bury Transport Museum
A restored 1848 railway goods warehouse filled with buses, trams and hands-on exhibits, two minutes from the East Lancashire Railway's Bolton Street station. Weekend opening, and the natural rainy-day half of a steam train day.
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.
Merseyside Maritime Museum
Closed until 2028. The Maritime and International Slavery Museums shut in early 2025 for a full redevelopment. The Albert Dock around them is still worth the walk, and the city's other national museums remain free and open.
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.