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.
Museums & science Chester
Museums & science in Chester
Hands-on museums and science centres. Several of the best ones are free.
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The free one is the Grosvenor Museum, which does Chester's Roman story properly and is the right size for an hour. Deva Roman Experience is £8 an adult and £5 a child for costumed legionaries, reconstructed streets and deliberately bad smells, but check the day before you drive in: weekends in term time, midweek in the school holidays. Cheshire Military Museum is the cheapest at £5 an adult and £10 for a family, and it has a First World War trench you walk through inside what survives of Chester Castle.
Museums & science in Chester
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Museums & science elsewhere in the North West
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What’s on near you, every Friday
One email a week: what is on this weekend within a sensible drive, and the places worth booking before they go.